Fate:Evolution
by TypeMoonFreak
Summary: 1000 years in the future Earth is no longer habitable. Humanity now lives on board large dome ships in Earth's orbit. However the Grail Wars have not stopped. New Masters, New Servants, New challenges. A new kind of War has evolved.
1. False Freedom

ACT I – False Freedom

A field of green grass stretches out before me as far as my eyes can see. Above me the sun shines brightly, warming my body and my spirit. Not a cloud was in the sky, no walls in either direction. The breeze ruffles my hair and bends the grass before my eyes. In any direction I look, all I see is the green grass. I can run as far as I can in any direction I want and still not reach any walls.

"Jin~!" Off in the distance, I can see my parents calling to me. "Lunch is ready, come here kiddo!" My dad stands up and waves his free hand, the other clutching a cold beer. Even from this distance I can tell that it's cold, and I can see the drops of condensation running down the side of the can. The sun glints off my dad's glasses.

"I made your favorite!" My mother calls to me, holding up a sandwich. She's wearing her favorite yellow sun dress and wearing matching yellow sandals and a sun hat. Her long dark hair ruffles in the breeze behind her.

I start to run towards them, ready to enjoy the picnic with just me and my parents. They're far away, but I can make it if I run. My feet pound against the soft dirt beneath my feet, it's a sensation I'm not to familiar with. The ground seems to put a spring in my step as I run.

As I get closer to my parents the grass seems to start to whither and die, turning brown and sinking into the ground. The sun starts to set and it's warmth leaves my body. I pump my legs faster, but this is as close as I can get to my parents.

In front of me there is a wall. Not a solid wall but a wall of glass so thick that I can't break through it. My parents are on the other side. Beneath my feet where there used to be grass is now made of metal.

"Mom! Dad!" I call out to the other side of the glass where my parents wait, frantically pounding on it even though I know it's useless. Behind them I can see the Earth, bathed in the vacuum of space

"Don't worry son, we'll be back soon." My dad waves to me in his space suit. He and my mom are going down to Earth.

"I love you Jin. Take care of the house while we're gone." My mom waves next. Promising their safe return, they float away from the glass in between us towards the blue planet behind them.

"NO! MOM! DAD! COME BACK! DON'T LEAVE ME!" I scream at the top of my lungs, punching the glass as hard as I can. I know they won't come back. That's why I have to stop them. If they go to Earth they'll definitely die. Frantically I continue to punch the glass, watching in horror as my parents fade away into the blackness of space. It's the last time I'll ever see them.

I collapse on the cold steel ground and close my eyes. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can see the grassy field again, see the sun again. My body feels like it's floating through the air, warmth returns, and through my eyelids I can see a faint light.

"Jin, get up." A female voice calls out to me.

I pull the sheets over my head to block out the light. "Leave me alone." I mumble groggily.

"Jin, you're late enough as it is. I've been trying to wake you up for half an hour, now get your lazy ass out of bed before I throw you out." The female voice complains.

"Ugh… five more minutes." I groan. Immediately afterwards I hear a metallic clicking noise. After a few moments, my bed swings upward with the force of a catapult and I am unceremoniously smacked into the door frame of my bathroom in the hallway.

"Ow…" I sit on the ground and groggily rub my head. I look back and see that my bed is still standing upright with my pillow and sheets on the floor in front of it. Guess there's no going back now.

"I told you I'd throw you out." The female voice says again.

After getting to my feet I stretch my arms and yawn. "Morning to you too, Hilda." I stagger in the bathroom through the automatically opening door and stare at my face in the mirror as my shower automatically starts. I step inside the shower and the second the water hits my body I find that it's freezing, frankly I'm surprised that there wasn't ice coming out of it.

"AHHHH! DAMMIT HILDA!"

"Just making sure you're awake." Hilda says with an evil sounding giggle.

Hilda is a human spirit bound to the house. She hates me. My parents, being the magi that they were, tried their best to imitate technology through magical means. Many houses these days have AIs installed in them for things like security and whatnot. Hilda can do many of the same things since she's integrated with the house, however she has the added bonus of having a personality. Well, my parents called it a bonus. They thought it was a good idea to have Hilda watch me when they were out instead of hiring a babysitter when I was a kid. It was pretty freaky as a kid to get tucked in at night by something I couldn't even see, but over the years I got used to Hilda… sort of.

Magi parents get a bad reputation for being hard on their kids. However, my parents were about as normal as you can get, other than the fact they can use magic of course. Sure, the training was hard and painful, but my mom and dad always made sure not to neglect their role as my parents as well as my teachers. I got really lucky in that regard. They were also geniuses, my family were one of the ones that helped build the ships that we as humans live on now. As such the knack for tech got passed down the line to generations, which does wonders for my science grades.

Thankfully Hilda isn't completely evil and usually turns the water back to warm after a few seconds. From what I've heard from my folks, Hilda was around 18 when she died. They never told me how it happened, and of course Hilda herself doesn't talk about it. The only thing about her that I've managed to scrounge up was that Hilda lived on the lower decks and had no family.

Most of the colony ships are made up of several decks, much like cruise liners. The lower you go, the worse things get. Crime is worse on the lower decks, you get things like murders and gang activities, it's pretty bad. I've never been down there myself because every deck is designed to be self sufficient, but from what I've heard they're under martial law almost all the time. Luckily, I had the fortune of being born on Deck 1. Hence the nice cushy house and the sadistic house sitter.

"I would hurry up and get dressed. Yayoi is waiting downstairs for you." Hilda announces as I put on my collar. I push the button on the side and I get the familiar sensation of a cool liquid running down my body. It's sort of what replaces underwear or clothing. Think of it as sort of a spandex body suit. Mine is blue, and covers my forearms, chest, and goes down to my legs. A lot of people just wear the body suit around, but some people still wear clothes over it. Either way is socially acceptable and it's a matter of personal preference. Personally, I usually wear jeans and a shirt over mine.

"You let her in here when I'm not even ready yet?" I growl at Hilda. Did I mention I can get grumpy in the mornings when Hilda slams me into a wall?

"Of course. I gotta have someone besides YOU to talk to ya know? Now get out of here before I tell Yayoi about that freckle on your ass."

"One of these days I swear…" I mumble head downstairs to find a girl in my kitchen popping some toast into the toaster while humming.

Yayoi Sakuraba. She's one of my classmates and also one of my oldest friends. She lives next door and is also a magus, though not a very good one. She's about my height with short chestnut colored hair and hazel eyes. She's smart and had a gorgeous body, I've always wondered what she sees in a guy like me. Despite that, she's stuck by me ever since my parents died, apparently Hilda also likes her. Today she's wearing a beautiful white blouse with a blue skirt that's just the perfect length, ending just below her thighs.

After a few moments she turns around and gives me a bright smile. "Good morning Jin." She greets me happily.

"Morning Yayoi." I wave at her and steal a piece of toast right from the machine when it pops up.

"Sorry he's late this morning. He wouldn't get out of bed again." Hilda chimes in, killing the mood.

"Geez Jin." Yayoi frowns and puts her hands on her hips.

I shrug and swallow the bit of toast I was eating. After digging into my pocket I hold up a metal ring that looks like a belt buckle with a few flashing buttons on it. "We'll be okay if I use this today."

Yayoi sighed. "I wish you would just get up earlier. I find it amazing that the FDS haven't confiscated it from you. Besides… I hate heights." To clarify the FDS stands for Fuyuki Defense Squad. They're what passes for police on the station.

"Do you see what I have to deal with all the time? He's always getting in some kind of trouble." Hilda lets out a sigh as well.

Yayoi giggles and grabs the second piece of toast from the machine. She sticks it in her mouth and grabs my hand, indicating she's ready to leave.

"Jin, if you drop her… I'll kill you." Hilda says ominously as Yayoi and I start to head for the door.

"Love you too, Hilda." I shoot back and head outside, dodging the door when I leave because Hilda always tries to smack me with it.

Just looking outside it's hard to tell that we live on a space station. The large glass dome that protects us has a hologram over it that simulates a nice sunny day on Earth. At least that's what all the old people say. It's easy to tell the sunlight is artificial, because there's no warmth coming from it. Even the air is artificial. Fuyuki II is designed to replicate a city down on Earth much like the other ships do. Now, I've never seen Fuyuki City although my parents have. People still go down to Earth occasionally for research and such, my parents were among them. They traveled the Earth looking for what they called artifacts, though I never knew exactly what they looked for. My house is filled with all kinds of weird things they found.

If I had things my way, that hologram would be gone all the time. It's been over a thousand years since anyone has lived on Earth, yet people still cling to it like we just left yesterday. I've never seen the real sky, nor has anyone I know. Personally I'd much rather look at the stars, than fake like I'm living on a planet. Planets don't have walls protecting you from solar radiation and gamma rays. Planets don't have gravity wells under the street to keep everything from floating away. Humans aren't free as people still like to claim. I can run in any direction and eventually hit a wall to keep me from going any further. That's not being free. That's being caged. It seems I'm the only one who realizes it.

"Jin? Are you okay?" Yayoi asks as she squeezes my hand and looks concerned.

I heave a sigh. I must have spaced out and worried her. I should be more careful where I think about humanity's doomed existence. If there's one person alive who I don't want to worry, then it's Yayoi.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I dig into my pocket and find the device in my pocket. I clip it onto the brim of my jeans and look at Yayoi. "You ready?" I ask. The device is a little something I built, it disrupts the signal of the gravity wells under the ground. Basically, it negates gravity in a small radius around me allowing me to be weightless. It really comes in handy for getting around, though Yayoi doesn't seem to like it too much.

"I… um…" Yayoi's cheeks go red as a lobster's and she stutters. I stifle a laugh, knowing exactly what she wants.

"Alright, come on." I put my arm around Yayoi's waist and pick her up, tucking my other arm under her knees. The famous "Princess Carry" that girls seem to love. At least Yayoi does. I keep trying to get her to fly with me without me doing this, but she's really scared of flying. She's a good friend, so I don't mind so much. Besides, her skin is really soft.

I start off at a jog. Yayoi holds onto me tightly as I speed up. After I get enough speed I kick off the ground and continue to float higher into the air. My feet leave the ground behind and soon I'm flying through the air. It's a really great feeling, being the only person able to fly like this while I watch those poor souls that have to run to school when they're late.

Yayoi buries her face into my neck as she holds on tight, her chest is pressing against mine and I can feel Yayoi's breasts squish against me. They're not huge, but they look perfect on her body, not to mention they feel great.

"Don't worry, I gottcha." I reassure her as I start to float down towards a house. The antigrav belt isn't perfect. I can't maintain it perfectly so I start to float back down to the ground, however all I have to do is kick off something and get more momentum and I can still go as fast as I want. It's really fun to do on high buildings, if I find a good spot I bet I could touch the top of the dome. I don't go too high when I'm with Yayoi because she really doesn't like it… and Hilda probably wasn't lying when she said she'd kill me if I dropped her. The highest I float around with Yayoi is only about as tall as my house which is two stories.

Our school is about a ten minute fly away. It would have taken us about half an hour if we had walked. We're still late, but not as late as we could have been. I'm really thankful to Yayoi for making herself late for me, I should make it up to her somehow.

Soon we float back to the ground outside our school. It's the replica of the old high school in Fuyuki, granted it's been remodeled a bit.

"Students Jin Aoyagi and Yayoi Sakuraba. You are ten minutes late. Please report to homeroom immediately." The AI greets us as we cross the threshold into the school.

I carefully put Yayoi down on the ground and we say our goodbyes, promising to meet on the roof at lunch. We head off to our respective classes and I return the antigrav buckle to my pocket. Yayoi is a year younger than I am, so we're in separate classes.

"Aoyagi, you're late." The homeroom teacher and everyone else turns my way when I enter the class.

"Sorry Fujimura-sensei. My AI malfunctioned and I got some blunt-force trauma." I make an excuse that's not too far from the truth and go to my seat near the window in the middle row.

My homeroom teacher is Ekichi Fujimura-sensei. He's actually really nice when I'm there on time. His taste in clothes however is horrible and usually wears a black suit with a tiger stripped tie. Seriously, what's up with that? Anyway, he's one of the more well liked teachers.

Homeroom droned on as usual. I spent most of my time staring out the window while Fujiumura-sensei talked about things that really didn't concern me. Archery Club is looking for new members, there's a panty thief on campus, blah blah blah. "Wait a minute. Panty thief?" In my absent mindedness I seemed to have blurted it out loud.

"Is there something you would like to add Aoyagi?" Fujimura-sensei said as he looked up from his podium.

"Nah. I must have gotten knocked on the head harder than I thought."

"Funny, Aoyagi. I'll remember that when I'm grading your English homework." Fujimura-sensei replies with a grin.

"Yo man, what's up with you today? You look even worse than usual." A friend of mine next to me whispered. His name is Kenji Sugata.

"Nothing to worry about Kenji." I reply absentmindedly. That dream I had this morning must have shaken me up more than I thought.

"If you say so man. We're friends ya know. Don't hesitate to talk to me about stuff." Kenji shoots me a thumbs up.

I force a smile. "Thanks Kenji."

After that Kenji leans closer. "Hey, Sakuraba didn't dump you did she?"

I stifle a laugh. "Shut up, we're not even going out." It's very true that I'm attracted to Yayoi, all the physical contact she likes to exert on me doesn't help the situation. We've been friends for so long I don't even know if I'm capable of changing things, or even if I want to. I'm sure she'll find some better guy soon enough, she's a first year and she's already pretty popular.

Kenji heaves a sigh. "Man, you're an idiot." He says with a shrug but doesn't say anything further.

Before I knew it the lunch bell rang and people started filing out to head to the cafeteria to battle each other for bread. Thanks to Yayoi I'm a winner without even fighting, she usually makes lunch for me since I can't cook all that well. Everything I learned about cooking Hilda taught me… which wasn't much. I think she just wanted an excuse to turn the flame up too high and burn off my eyebrows.

"Aoyagi, can I talk to you for a minute?" Fujimura-sense called my name as I was about to head out the door and go to the roof. I guess I can humor him, he doesn't talk to me often since my grades are pretty good so it could be important.

"What's up Fujimura-sensei?" I walk over to his desk and greet him.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of everyone, but you seemed a bit… depressed today. Is something wrong?" He asks, seemingly really concerned. Him and everyone else.

I frown at him. If that's all it was he shouldn't worry so much. He's my teacher not my dad. "Everyone seems to be on my case today…"

"If that's the case, did you ever think that maybe they were on to something? You can fool yourself, but you can't fool people who care about you Aoyagi." Fujimura-sensei crossed his arms and sat back in his chair.

"…" Maybe they were right. After all tomorrow was THAT, which would explain the dream I had this morning.

"Have you thought about joining a club? It's a good way to blow off some steam." Fujimura-sensei suggested casually.

"Not really, it's not mandatory and I haven't found one that interested me yet." I scratched the back of my head. I've never really been a club sort of guy. If I was in a club I probably wouldn't have had the time on my hands to invent all that stuff that's been cluttering up my room.

Fujimura-sense sighed. "You said the same thing last year. I thought if I gave you some time you might get into one. Well, I guess I'll stop pushing you. If there's anything I can do to help you out, let me know."

"Now that I think about it, there is one thing." Probably a long shot, but I may as well ask him anyway.

"What's that Aoyagi?" Fujimura-sensei's ears perked up.

"Don't count me absent if I play hooky tomorrow."

Fujimura-sensei frowned at the prospect and started to stroke his tie. "Don't know if I can pull that one off. Maybe if I knew the circumstances…" He leaned forward, trying to coax the information out of me.

Well, I've hid it for a year so there's no point in it anymore. I'll skip school no matter what his answer is, but it would help if I don't get in trouble for it. "Tomorrow is the anniversary of my parent's death."

My expression must have convinced him because Fujimura-sensei frowned as well. "I'll see what I can do for you." He said solemnly.

"Thanks Fujimura-sensei." Not feeling up to talking to him anymore I left the classroom and headed to the roof. Despite all the advancements in technology it never ceased to amaze me that there were still stairs everywhere. I know the importance of exercising in space, but come on. The stairway leading to the roof looked pretty normal, no flashing lights or buttons, just stairs and a metal railing.

I open the door to the roof and step out onto the concrete.

"Come on baby, we just want you to have lunch with us." Across the roof I see a couple of guys that look like third years talking to someone in the corner backed against the fenced in roof.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" I start to walk across the roof towards them. They looked like a couple of assholes that like to harass girls. As if it wasn't obvious enough by the first thing I heard stepping onto the roof.

One of them looked back over his shoulder and saw me walking towards them. "Get outta here punk. This doesn't concern you." He replies. I swear if they're talking to who I think they are…

"Jin? Is that you?" Standing on her toes Yayoi peeked over the guy's heads and called out to me.

"Hey, babe we're still talking here." One of the guys said rather rudely.

"Alright you two. I'm gonna have to ask you to step away from the nice young girl." These guys were pretty huge, but I'm almost sure I can take them. Guys like this are almost always dumbasses.

They both turned around and took a couple of steps towards me. "What are you going to do about it? We saw this girl sitting up here all by herself. A real man wouldn't keep a girl like that waiting right?" It amazes me how idiots like this make their way into the world.

"Look, I'd rather not hurt you guys. Obviously she's not interested, so I'd just take a hint and piss off." I cross my arms and try to look as threatening as possible. Which probably isn't going to do much against guys like this. They look like they play sports.

The two of them started laughing. "Hurt us? That's a good one. How about YOU leave, and we won't break your legs."

"J-Jin…" In the corner Yayoi started to shake out of fear. And that is one thing you don't want to do in front of me.

I start to step forward and look the two creeps square in the eyes.

"What chu gonna do punk?" Out of the corner of my eyes I see them clenching their fists.

In an instant I switch on my Magic Circuits. These guys aren't taking a hint. Idiots like this don't understand anything other than force. If force is what will convince them, then fine.

The stare down went on for a couple of seconds before the jocks made the first move as I planned. I could see their muscles ripple as they raised their fists to punch me. It was easy to see coming, these guys all have the same M.O. A fist came at my face, but my feet were already in a good position so I sidestepped it and grabbed his arm.

"ARRRGH SHIT!" The bastard yelled in pain as he got a nice jolt of electricity through his body. If anything it should make the meathead relax a little.

"You bastard!" His friend came at me next. These guys are stronger, but I'm faster. I put my leg in front of his which caused him to trip and fall flat on his face on the concrete.

Before he can get up, I pounce on him and grab his head.

"GUH!" After a short yelp he fell unconscious.

"Take a nap, jackass." I say as I get up.

"What the hell did you just do?" His buddy who I apparently forgot to finish off got up, he's still clutching the arm I grabbed which was still twitching in a rather grotesque manner.

"Do you really wanna stay and find out? Or do you want to get your friend out of here? If you take option B you might want to hurry up. I may have lobotomized him." I growl and position myself between the remaining dirtbag and Yayoi.

"Grrrr." With a growl that sounded like a defeated animal, the remaining jock heaved his buddy up on to his shoulder and ran out of the door.

After they leave I turn to Yayoi. "You okay? They didn't touch you did they?"

Yayoi shook her head. "N-No, I'm alright." Good, she just seems scared. If that's all they did I can rest easy. Yayoi is actually pretty shy, so if two guys like that corner her and start to hit on her it doesn't surprise me she got scared.

I heave a sigh of relief. "Good. You still up for lunch"

Yayoi nodded again. "That guy he's not…"

I almost wanted to sigh again. Was she really worried about him? "No no, don't worry. I didn't kill him." I reassure her. It was the truth, as pissed as I was, I didn't want to kill them. Still, sometimes I think Yayoi is just too nice.

()()()

The rest of the day passed without incident. Sometimes I think school hasn't changed in the thousand years that we've been in space. Of course I have nothing to base that on. It seems I didn't get in trouble for beating up those guys on the roof, I doubt they said anything since it probably would have made them look bad.

On the way out of school I met Yayoi at the front door as usual. We live right next to each other, so we usually end up walking home together. It really beats walking home by myself.

"Thanks for earlier today Jin." She says with a bright smile.

I shrug. "It's not like I could just leave you like that. Besides, I considered your lunch paying me back. The sausages were really good." I finish with a grin.

"Um, about tomorrow… can I go with you?" Yayoi asks timidly. She's known about my parents for a long time, and she knows that I usually go to the gravesite. She usually doesn't offer to come long, but she must be getting bolder this year.

"You sure you want to? It'll be pretty boring you know." Truthfully, I don't know if I want her to be with me when I'm upset. Maybe I'm an idiot for thinking like that, but it's sort of like I don't want to see her sad. I don't want her to see me when I'm sad either.

"I… want to be with you." The way she said it, felt like my heart cracked open.

I just can't say no now. All I can do is nod. I'm pretty weak when it comes to Yayoi, she's got me wrapped around her finger and I know it.

The two of us walk home in silence. I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to say to her, and she didn't feel the need to break the silence. I don't remember saying goodbye to her and walking her to her door but I guess I did. I don't even remember going inside and getting hit with the door. The next thing I realized I was on my couch.

"You didn't yell at me when I hit you with the door… are you okay?" Concern is in Hilda's voice. That's new.


	2. Days Gone By

ACT II – Days Gone By

I wake up in my bed and find that my head feels kind of hazy. The last thing I remember was coming home and lying down on my couch, I don't remember what I did for the rest of the day or even when I went to bed. I'm dressed in only my body suit, so at least I didn't sleep in my clothes. I remember what day today is, so I swing my legs over my bed and stretch my back. Might as well start planning out what I want to do today. Yayoi will be in school but she said she'd drop by, until then I think I'll look at some old pictures and videos.

"Good morning Jin." Hilda greets me entirely differently today. Her voice is quieter and she's not her usual peppy, sadistic self. This is the one day every year she doesn't torture me. It's times like this that I remember the days where she was the one raising me. I don't think she really hates me in reality, in fact she's never actually tried to seriously harm me. If I had to describe her antics I'd merely call them playful pranks, although it does get old after awhile.

"Morning, Hilda." I reply lazily with a large yawn and stand up feeling the soft springy carpeting under my floor. My room is actually pretty big although you wouldn't realize it just by looking. Since I'm the only one here I took over the master bedroom after my parents died. There's barely any floor space left as it's covered in all kinds of things whether they be failed inventions or books… actually, I should probably pick up that ritual dagger that's lying on my floor. That would suck to step on.

I make my way into my bathroom which is just across the hallway, waiting for the door to slide upward and disappear into the slot on the doorway with a faint hissing of the mechanisms inside it. The lights come up with a small pop and the shower automatically starts, out of habit I test the temperature of the water to make sure Hilda hasn't played any tricks. She hasn't.

"There's a surprise waiting for you downstairs." Hilda says as I step out of the shower and start to dry my hair.

"Alright, thanks Hilda." Before I realize it I actually thanked her as I put on my collar and push the button to activate my body suit. Returning to my room I throw on a fresh pair of clothes not paying much attention to what they were. Silently I wonder what this so called surprise was Hilda is talking about so I quickly make my way down the stairs and into my living room.

I can hear noise coming from the kitchen, it sounds like music, the clattering of dishes, and what I think is humming. It sounds like some J-Pop idol but I didn't recognize who she was. I turn the corner and see that the one doing the humming while cooking in my mom's apron is Yayoi, who is supposed to be at school. It's actually really surprising. She looks… happy. Her hips sway back and forth in rhythm to the song as the faint sizzling of something in the pain in front of her almost drowns out her voice. The smell of eggs fills the room and I can't help but think that she looks like a newlywed wife cooking for someone she loves. I don't know how long I stood there staring until Hilda decided to step in.

"Yayoi, Jin is staring at your butt."

"Hm?" Yayoi turns around to confirm that I am in fact standing there. The second she sees me she smiles brightly, in her hand she holds a spatula. "Good morning." She says brightly.

I quickly look away from her and try to hide my embarrassment by scratching my cheek. "Morning. I- er… really wasn't staring you know."

"Yes he was." Hilda chimes in.

I heave an exasperated sigh, silently wishing at that moment that Hilda was really an AI so I could just turn her off. My eyes find their way back to Yayoi who had been blushing.

"You know I don't mind if you stare a little…" She says softly, her hands going to the bottom of the apron which ends in a horribly ostentatious pink frill. She pinches the edges and starts to slowly hike it up. Her legs became visible after a brief moment and then after that she continued to hike it up until I could see her thighs. My breathing stopped until she hiked it up so far that I saw her body suit underneath it.

I let out a breath of air. "Don't do that…" I knew she wasn't naked since I saw her from the back, but my mind sort of seemed to forget that fact the minute she turned around. What an evil trick.

Yayoi giggles and lets the apron fall back down. "You look disappointed." She says with a grin.

"Hmph. Aren't you supposed to be in school? I have an excuse, where's yours?" I cross my arms and look away from her.

"I said I wanted to be with you today didn't I?" Yayoi leans forward and puts her hands on her hips, looking offended. It wasn't like I didn't expect her to come at all, I just didn't think she'd skip school for me.

"Maybe your parents were right. I think I am a bad influence on you." Yayoi's parents are alive and well, she still lives happily with them. I don't actually see them very much because I've only been to Yayoi's house a couple times. From what I heard from Yayoi, both of them have received Sealing Designations from the Association so they don't get out much. Yayoi's talents in magic aren't combat based, in fact I don't think she knows any offensive magic at all, her parents are like that too. It has something to do with their family crest but I can't exactly ask about it because that has to do with family secrets.

"I appreciate you worrying about me, but it isn't like I plan on making a habit out of this." Yayoi turns around and fiddles with the egg which smelled like it was about done frying. She takes a plate and puts what looks like an omelet and a piece of toast on it. If she didn't do this, I might not have eaten at all today. She turns around and produces a plate of food. "Here you go." She says proudly.

"What about you?" I ask as I take the plate. She smiled again, probably happy that I'm worried about her.

"Don't worry about me, I ate at home." She says as she grabs my shoulders and pushes me to the table. I ate in silence while Yayoi just sat and watched, looking happy. It was then I realized that it was because she was here making me breakfast that I wasn't feeling so bad anymore. A strange feeling came over me, my heart started to pound in my chest and I start to feel a knot in the pit of my stomach when I look at Yayoi. It wasn't really a bad pain it felt for lack of a better word… warm.

Since my parents died four years ago she's always been there for me. Yet until today when I saw her cooking in my kitchen and skipping school for me, I never saw her as anything more than an old friend. I've always been conscious of her because of how pretty she is, especially this past year, but I've never felt the way I do now. I realize just now how much she really means to me.

"Are you two going to kiss or just stare at each other all morning?" Enter Hilda. Moment Killer.

"Ugh… shut up." With a loud bang my head falls and smacks onto the table. I wish I could at least see her, so I could have someone to glare at.

"I'll um… go take care of the dishes." Yayoi says nervously and grabs the plate just in front of my head. I hear her walk quickly to the kitchen, turn on the water, and begin bustling about.

While Yayoi is in the kitchen I pick my head up off of the table and head to the living room and sit out my couch. There's a small computer terminal in front of it which I turn on by flipping a small switch on the side. The computer itself is about as large as a piece of paper and only about an inch or two thick. The interface is all holographic, projecting an image of a keyboard and the information in an area in front of me. It's blue glow is pretty comforting to look at. I'm actually pretty good with computers and being a member of the Aoyagi family, I know quite a bit about the internal structure of Fuyuki II. Which makes what I'm about to do a lot easier.

I crack my knuckles and touch the area the keyboard is floating in. The screen ticks out information in front of me with a bluish glow emanating from the tablet itself. My parents loved to look at the stars, probably why they chose their work the way they did. They were Archeologists, so naturally they spent a lot of time traveling to Earth and back, I'm sure they took a lot of time to look at the real sky there. Unfortunately, the holo screen covering the "sky" prevents us from looking into space other than at night. My parents weren't the ones who actually helped build the ship of course, but the knowledge and knack for technology got passed through our lines by word of mouth. I didn't just get trained as a Magus by my parents. They spent quite a lot of time teaching me about the ship too.

Getting through the government's security firewalls was cake. Lucky for them I'm not going to mess with anything major and they can't back hack me because I bounce my signal all over the place. There are thousands of old satellites still orbiting Earth, pretty handy for bouncing signals around. After I'm through the firewall, I plant the gift for my parents I've been working on in the programming for the holo sky. It's on a timer, which means Yayoi and I should probably get going.

I turn off my computer after that and look towards the kitchen. Yayoi seemed to have finished the dishes and she was now folding her apron. Under it, she is wearing a blue skirt with a simple white t shirt. I watch her as she turns around and makes her way into the living room.

I get up off my seat and ignore the faint pain in my left shoulder that seemed to have shown up out of nowhere. It was uncomfortable like being stabbed with a knife that didn't quite break the skin. I rolled it once to shrug it off my mind and addressed Yayoi. "Shall we get going?"

Yayoi's smile drops, knowing full well where I plan to take her. "Okay." She nods.

"Say hello for me, Jin." Hilda says as she opens the door.

I lead Yayoi out of the door and hear the hissing of it sliding back into place and then a short beep as it locks behind us. Hilda has control of most of the systems in the house, hence how she can let Yayoi inside and use the house systems to torment me like she does. I used to ask about her when I was younger, she wouldn't go into how she died at all of course, but she did say that in the house she's practically omnipresent. She has the ability to talk to someone in a different room while she's controlling the temperature of the water upstairs or turning on the TV. The spell that bound her to the house must have been pretty impressive to do that. Hilda claims that provided she got enough mana put into the seal that binds her that's located somewhere in the house, she could materialize herself for at least a little while. I've tried looking for said seal, but I could never turn up anything. I'll admit I am slightly curious about it, or at least I used to be.

Yayoi and I set off towards the cemetery in silence. I'm not using the belt buckle because I'm not really in a hurry, and quite frankly I do enjoy walking next to Yayoi. It wasn't long before she started to walk closer and her fingertips brushed against my own, sending what felt like a static bolt of electricity up my arm. I felt my face heat up and I look over at Yayoi who is looking back at me expectantly.

I take a breath and grab her hand just like she wants, enclosing her soft and warm hand in my own. Normally, I'm not that bold and usually she's the one clinging onto me. However today I'm finding her company really comforting. She squeezes my hand and my shoulder gives a slightly more intense twinge of pain which I manage to suppress by gritting my teeth. I don't know what was going on with it, but I don't want to worry Yayoi any more than she probably already is worried about me.

At this time of day there are still a few vehicles on the streets. Cars haven't really changed much. They still run on four wheels, have headlights, turn signals, and run completely on either solar power or electricity. The only real difference is that they have the option of AI auto piloting, the designs are sleeker and more rounded than the cars of the 21st Century, and naturally the safety mechanisms have improved significantly. These days it's pretty rare for car accidents to happen. I'm almost thankful my parents didn't leave me a car when they died, I shudder to think what would happen if they bound a spirit like Hilda to drive the car.

The cemetery is about a 30 minute walk from my house. I make this trip every year, usually alone. I'm really not this depressed all the time, but my mood turns a little sour a few days before the anniversary. My parent's death wasn't exactly sudden. It takes quite awhile to die from space radiation sickness, and it's slow and painful. My parents spent most of the time lying in hospital beds while the doctors did whatever they could to "make them comfortable". They were the only relatives I had that were alive so when they died I had no one to take me in, hence why I was looked after by Hilda.

Despite how she normally acts how, during that four years it was just us she had this maternal charm about her. She always made sure I did my homework and got up for school in the morning, she did everything a mother could despite being intangible. When I got into trouble her punishments usually consisted of a jet stream of water to the face from the sprinkler system, which felt like getting punched in the face. Say what you will about ethics, but I don't hate her for it. Nothing calms you down like a freezing cold blast of water. She always made good afterwards of course, if she had arms, she probably would have hugged me. As I got older I guess she felt like I could look after myself and the maternal part of her gradually went away and she turned into the playful prankster I have to deal with now.

Yayoi and I arrive at the cemetery together. Somewhere along the walk when I was lost in thought she must have let go of my hand and held my arm and walked close to me instead. We step through the iron gate and onto the grounds, the row of gravestones look almost eerie as they stick out of the grass in perfect rows. Silently we walk in a few rows and arrive at our destination.

It wasn't a big stone, my parents probably wanted it that way but they did want to be buried together. Their names were etched into the metal gravestone reading their names.

_Here lies Ken and Motoko Aoyagi._

I stare at their names, and the memories come flooding back all at once. They were gone at work a lot, but when they came home we always went on picnics in the park. We went to festivals together and watched fireworks. They really were great parents and great Magi as well. I don't know where they found the time to do all the things they did and spend time with me… but I was blessed.

I feel Yayoi squeeze my arm harder. Her body warmth next to mine was comforting and she was looking at my face, wordlessly telling me that it was okay to cry. I couldn't afford to cry, not in front of Yayoi. So I choked it back even though I could feel my eyes welling up. It felt like my feelings were being held in a lump in my throat. I looked at my watch, there were only about 30 seconds until the trigger I put in the sky's programming took effect.

Suddenly, the sky went dark with a faint popping sound as the hologram in the sky was switched off. I heard Yayoi gasp, it probably surprised her since she didn't know that I did it. Turning it off was harmless, and it would only last for about an hour. I just wanted to be with my parents under the stars, one last time.

I crane my neck upwards. Tiny amounts of stars dotted the sky and the sun shined brighter than ever against the dark void of space. The Milky Way could be spotted overhead as well, it was a beautiful display of color, the browns and whites of the galaxy mixed together in what looked like a huge hazy cloud dotted with stars that shimmered like diamonds.

"Jin… did you?" Yayoi seems to have figured it out as her voice was filled with amazement.

I nod, choking down some more tears trying my best to hide it. Unfortunately it's getting harder as I automatically imagine my parents sitting next to me on a blanket like we used to, and a tear streams down my face. I feel Yayoi wrap her arms around me and pull me against her, her fingers find the back of my head and she starts to stroke my hair in a motherly fashion.

"Don't…" I manage to choke out. If she holds me like this… I can't hold it back. I don't want to do this in front of her. I can't look weak in front of Yayoi. I don't want her to see me like this. Letting her come was a mistake.

"It's okay. Let it out." She whispers softly. I wish she wouldn't do that. It's like she's taking down my mental barriers. I feel more tears stream from my eyes and down my cheeks. I feel my arms raise and wrap themselves around Yayoi's body, she smiles and holds me tighter. The pain in my shoulder intensifies, probably because my mental barriers were taken down by Yayoi's embrace. It's almost like my mom is holding me again.

"I miss them Yayoi…" I continue to cry silently for another minute or so. I'm pissed that I let myself cry in front of her, but afterwards it feels like a sort of weight was lifted off my shoulders. Even after I stop crying, Yayoi continues to embrace me for several minutes before finally breaking off.

I wipe my eyes and heave a sigh. Yayoi smiles up at me, it's a comforting smile. She's saying that it'll be okay even without opening her mouth.

"I think if they were here, they'd be proud of you." Yayoi whispers and steps forward to grab my hands.

"Kyaa! Jin you're bleeding!" She exclaims and looks at my left hand. Sure enough, down my entire arm streams a bit of blood. It's not a lot, but enough that it drips off of my fingertips. The pain in my shoulder is still there.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" I grab the collar of my shirt and pull it back to expose my shoulder. Sure enough I find the source of the blood.

On my shoulder a pattern emerges. It looks sort of like a tattoo on the back of my left shoulder, it vaguely resembles six angel wings split up into three sections. The design itself twists and curls about like some sort of old tribal design. Strangely enough it doesn't hurt as much as you would think just by looking at it. I remember my parents once telling me about something like this, but I can't quite remember what it was.

"J-Jin? Are you okay?" Yayoi asks, her eyes are wide and she looks worried.

"It doesn't really hurt, but we should head back. I have some reading to do apparently." I let my collar go and it covers up my shoulder again. At least I'll have something to do besides get depressed in front of Yayoi again.


	3. The Saber

ACT III – The Saber

By the time Yayoi and I get back to my place, the sky got switched back on. I'm sure it'll make the news tonight and the FDS might question me, but there's no way they can prove anything. Either way I have more important things to think about, like the mark that appeared on my shoulder. Thankfully it had stopped bleeding so Yayoi doesn't look as worried as she did earlier.

"Hilda, pull up the library for me will you?" I ask her as Yayoi and I step through the doorway.

"All of it?" Hilda asks quizzically.

"Yeah, just display the titles for me. I'll know what I'm looking for when I see it." The large flat screen display on my wall flicked on with a humming followed by a few quick beeps.

"Do you want some tea, Jin?" Yayoi asks from next to me as I watch the screen fill up with the name of every book I possess.

I nod, it was near lunch time now so some tea would be nice. "Sure, but you don't have to stay if you don't want to. It might get pretty boring." I look over at her. I feel bad. I had planned on spending the rest of the day with her grieving over my parents and reminiscing, but if I'm just going to be looking for a book she probably has better things she could do.

To my surprise Yayoi heaves an exasperated sigh. "You know you're really stupid sometimes." She says and pokes my forehead.

"I know exactly what you mean." Hilda chimes in, trying her best to sound exhausted.

Without another word, Yayoi turns around and makes her way to the kitchen as I sit on the couch and start to scroll through the list of books in my library. I'm not sure exactly what Yayoi meant about me being stupid, I'm just looking out for her. It's not like I'm dense. I know very well that Yayoi has had feelings for me, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any affection for her too. I just think she can do better than me. Tohsaka maybe. I don't know him very well since he's not in my class, but I know that he could give Yayoi everything she'll ever need. He's a great Magus too. Maybe he'd be more suitable for her than I would. Why she stays by me, I'll never know.

Then again… maybe it wouldn't be so bad to return her feelings. Neither one of us has ever confessed to the other, which honestly surprises me sometimes. I'm sure she wants to. Man, just thinking about it makes my heart pound.

A few minutes later Yayoi comes back with the tea and sits next to me on the couch. Her shoulder lightly brushes against mine, making me jump slightly. I don't know if it was accidental or she did it on purpose, but it knocked my train of thought off it's tracks.

"What are you looking for?" Yayoi asks curiously as I reach the halfway point in the long list of book titles.

"I'll know it when I see it." I lean forward and strain my eyes, careful not to miss any of the titles. It's a long list, so I don't want to go through this any more than once right now.

"Is this about earlier?" She asks again. She's sure asking a lot of questions right now, she does sound genuinely curious so there's no harm in telling her. Besides, if she can help me out then it's fine.

"Yeah, this… mark or something appeared on my shoulder and I wanted to try and ID it." I fill her in on what I'm thinking, and where I may have heard something about marks appearing on Magi before.

"May I see it?" She asks, looking expectantly at my shoulder.

I nod without even thinking about it and tug at the collar of my shirt until my shoulder and the mark on it is exposed. Now that I think about it, this is probably the most skin she's ever seen of me other than what my body suit covers but she's never seen me in just that either. I get goose bumps as she leans in close to look at the mark on my shoulder, I can feel her hot breath on my skin and the heat from her body being so close. Thankfully she keeps her hair semi-short because if she had long hair and it touched me I think I'd lose my mind.

"You too huh…?" She heaves a sigh that almost sounded like she was worrying about something and sat back to look at me.

"Me too what? You're saying you have one too?" I could feel my eyes widen in surprise as Yayoi started to hang her head.

"You sure it's not a love mark?" Hilda says with a small giggle.

Both Yayoi and I blush furiously at Hilda's little attempt to lighten the mood. Of course we both know that's not the case. I clear my throat and address Yayoi again. "Well can I see yours? It would be nice to have something to compare mine to."

"I-er-well-um…" She stuttered nervously and started to fidget with her fingers in her lap. "It's not exactly in a spot I can show you…" She mumbled.

"I can leave you two alone for awhile if you want. I promise I won't watch." Hilda chimed in.

"That's alright, don't worry about it. So what does it mean anyway?" I ask Yayoi, completely ignoring Hilda.

To answer my question, Yayoi raises her hand and scrolls through my library of books still on the screen and stops right at a particular one as if she knew right where it was all along.

"Hilda open this one please." Yayoi asks politely.

"Sure thing." Hilda responds and a chime resounded from the TV as the title was selected and a digital copy of the front cover of the book was projected out of the TV. The title read as follows.

_Fuyuki's Holy Grail Wars._

Yeah, that rang a bell. My parents used to tell me stories as a kid about it but I never thought it was more than stories to get young Magi to go to sleep at night. I reach out my hand and open the cover. My library is quite large so I couldn't keep it all in the house, the physical copies are kept in storage otherwise they'd clutter up the house. The book itself was pretty normal looking, I skimmed the table of contents and found the book read like a survival manual. How the hell did my folks get a hold of something like this?

Yayoi sat next to me, looking over my shoulder as I read through it a little. Apparently seven Magi are chosen through a selection system, the selected Magi each get a three Command Spells used to command a Servant. A Servant, as I understand it, is a powerful… well I guess I could describe it as sort of a familiar. Using a ritual ancient heroes of the past come forth to do battle for the one and only Holy Grail of legend. There were a chapter of rules that I skimmed over with a very curious heading saying "For more questions, see your Observer."

"Observer? What the hell is that?" I ask to no one in particular.

"She's a Sister at the church. If I remember right her name is Marque. Sister Marque." Yayoi explained as her eyes were turned up as if she was trying to remember the Sister's name while talking.

"A Sister? You're joking right? We don't exactly get along with the Church too well." I was a bit surprised. Relations between the Association and the Holy Church haven't changed for pretty much the existence of either of them. The Holy Church is likely to kill a Magi on sight merely on principle.

Yayoi shrugs. "Apparently it's some long tradition. The Grail is pretty important to both sides, so it's only natural for someone from the Church to be here too."

"What about this… Servant thing? Have you summoned one yet?" I ask curiously. I'm not exactly sure what kind of ancient hero to expect but I was almost certain it was embellished. There's no way a Magi could pull something like that off… but I could be wrong. There were a lot of mysterious things surrounding this Grail thing, the Command Spells on my shoulder were proof enough of that.

To my surprise Yayoi nodded. "I've had my Command Spells for about a month, so after a few preparations I summoned my Servant last week."

"You've had it that long? Is it here? Can I see it?" I was excited more than anything. Yayoi was going to have a chance at the Holy Grail, if she won she could have a wish granted, have anything she ever wanted. I don't know how or why she kept something this huge from me, but for some reason I wasn't mad. I'm sure she had her reasons, she would have told me if she thought I needed to know I guess.

Yayoi nodded. "He's here." She turned her head to the empty space next to her. "If you please, Saber."

The air next to my couch began to shimmer and ripple until I could see the outline of what looked like a large man, his features soon began to materialize into place. I could tell this would have taken a large amount of magical energy to summon something this big. As if being brought into existence in front of my eyes what I see now standing in front of me baffled me beyond belief.

Next to Yayoi now stands a man at least six feet tall. His chest was exposed revealing a muscular body like a bodybuilder's yet he wore a mantle made of some kind of fur. His long raven colored hair billowed down his back and his broad shoulders were supported by his collar bone with protruded from his body. His arms rippled with muscles, in fact he looked like he could pick up a car and squeeze it in half. The skin that covered his body was tinted red, as if at some point he had been covered in blood. His legs were just as muscular as the rest of him. He wore what looked like thick leggings made of some kind of metal and matching greaves. Around his wrists were what looked like thick wrist guards plated with copper. At his hip was a sword sheathed in leather. I couldn't see much of the sword itself, but the hilt and the pommel were plated in gold.

The large man stares down at me, looking like he wants to cut me in half but there's something preventing from him doing so. I didn't even notice that my jaw had dropped in astonishment.

"Oooh… what I wouldn't give to have hands right now." Hilda sighs with a shuddering voice.

"Is this all right? To show myself in front of another Master?" He addresses Yayoi without taking his eyes off of me. His voice is deep, deep enough that I think it comes from the pit of his stomach rather than his throat.

"I trust Jin with my life, as long as I do so will you Saber." Yayoi replies and puts her hands on her hips. I was flattered to hear her say that.

The hulking man closes his eyes and nods. "Understood."

"He's… certainly something. This is your Servant?" I don't know how I managed to speak again, but I can't stop staring at the big guy in front of me. He was a giant if I ever saw one.

Yayoi nods. "Yeah, he doesn't talk much though."

"That's so cool… What's his name?" I turn around and start flipping through the book until I find the chapter on Servant summoning. I want one too, I'm pretty impressed. I don't know about this whole wish thing, but if I can help Yayoi with hers then I will without a second thought. If at some point I find out this whole thing is the real deal, then I'll figure something out that I want. Until then I want to support Yayoi.

"I have no name to give to you right now." The man Yayoi calls Saber answers me with a defensive growl. Oh right… Servants are supposed to fight each other. Wait a minute, does that mean I'll have to take this guy on when I summon my Servant? This all sounds like it's one big game for a prize. Well, from what I understand these guys have died once already so I guess I can understand his hostility.

"Well that's okay." I give Saber a halfhearted reply and continue to read the chapter I have in front of me. It says I can use a catalyst if I'm trying to summon a particular Heroic Spirit but I don't have anything like that. I'd need something the person owned. That would be like getting a hold of Excalibur to summon King Arthur. Something like that isn't going to happen.

"Master if you do not need me…" Saber began.

"Alright, you can go." Yayoi nods and Saber fades from existence. Afterwards Yayoi turns to me. "Are you going to fight too?" She asks though I get a feeling her question had an underlying motive.

I turn to her and nod. "Yeah, I can't pass something like this up. I'm going to fight with you." I grin.

"With me…?" Yayoi tilted her head. Maybe she didn't know what I meant or maybe I just caught her off guard.

"Mhm. I'll make sure your wish gets granted." I stand up and stare at my screen now displaying the instructions for summoning a Servant which strangely enough read like a cooking recipe.

"R-Really? You don't even know what it is though." Yayoi blushed furiously and looked down at her feet.

I grin and pat her on the head. "Doesn't matter." Yayoi's hair is soft like silk and she jumps a little when I touch her but doesn't protest at all. In fact I think she might like it.

"U-Um, I hate to interrupt this touching moment, but do you mind bringing out Saber again?" Hilda asks with a rather breathless sounding voice.

"Hm? What for?" Yayoi asks curiously.

"Oh… no reason really."

"Hey, Jin. I have to leave for awhile but I promise I'll be back for dinner okay?" Yayoi says as she gets up off of the couch and turns around to face me. She looks like she doesn't really want to leave but it's probably important.

I nod. This actually works out pretty good, since I want to get ready to summon my Servant. I'll probably do it later tonight, late at night seems good enough. Wait a minute, did she say she'd be back for dinner? By the time I realize what she said Yayoi was already gone and I was left to my own devices.

"Hau~ I need a cold shower." Hilda moans, a tone I've never really heard out of her before. "Oh right… I can't take one."

Today has been pretty strange. I found out that I'm going to be involved in some ancient war to have a wish granted by the Holy Grail. I met a giant of a man who's a hero of the past, and found out how to summon my own hero to be my partner for awhile. When I woke up this morning I never expected things to turn out like this. However, as a Magi of the Aoyagi family I feel obligated to plunge headfirst into this even if I have no idea what I should expect. Maybe I should go talk to that Sister that Yayoi mentioned…

Bonus ACT 3.5 – Warrior's Demon

_One week earlier_

I was told our family's homeland used to be covered in snow. However that was about all they told me. I wasn't raised to know anything. I was barely treated as a human, which is fortunate since I'm not human anyway. I wasn't born, I was manufactured. The country in which I was made was Neo Germany, the family I was "born" into happened to be one of the oldest family of Magi around… the Einsberns.

For as long as I could remember the family only taught me to do one thing, and one thing only. Kill. My entire life seemed like it had been one long training drill, each day testing my physical capabilities. From what I've overheard the elders talking about, I was something called a homunculus. I resemble a human, but my body is just a jumble of magic circuits inside a body of meat. That's all I ever saw humans as, just wads of meat that have become increasingly easy to rip apart.

They were carving me from a blank slate into what the elders thought was a perfect warrior, and I was given every possible advantage. I was a new kind of homunculus, something new they tried because the elders are tired of losing Wars. I'm just an experiment to them. The woman who gave birth to me, or rather who I'm modeled after, died. I never learned her name, but it was she who gave me mine. Odette.

They say I look just like my "mother". The same long, silver hair, the same crimson eyes. That doesn't matter to me. What does matter is the fact that I can kill a human in over a thousand ways using just my hands. My hands and arms no longer even made of flesh. When I was old enough, my frail human hands and legs were exchanged for something a bit stronger, made of the strongest metal known to mankind. Circuits integrate with my nerves and muscles so I don't lose any dexterity, and I gain so much more.

It was hard to control at first so they stopped having me spar with actual humans because I crushed their skulls too easily. I can still recall the feeling of it, that dull crunching sound as my fingers enclosed around the man's head, the sound of his screaming in agony as I start to squeeze, the feeling of his warm blood oozing out of his orifices and over my hands, the sweet smell of it. It was pure ecstasy.

Punching through a three inch steel wall isn't quite the same as punching through a squishy human. It did seem to make the elders quite happy though. I can overhear their conversation with each other as they watch me run my daily exercises outside the castle where I've spent my entire life.

"How is her progression?" There are at least three of them watching me. Evaluating me. I would crush their skulls too if they let me get close enough.

"Beyond our estimates. She's as ruthless as she is beautiful." One of them gives a faint smile. His lips curl under his white mustache, barely visible under the hair.

"And the artifact?" The last man wearing long white robes addresses the other two. Yes, the artifact they speak of I am familiar with. They picked what they thought was a good partner for me. My mission, my reason for existence.

"She has been watching over it. I believe we ended up finding his hat. Hard to believe it's lasted so long really." The third elder grinned menacingly. An ancient bowler hat is what they speak of, it lies in my room as I wait for the proper moment to summon my partner.

"We'll have her leave for Fuyuki II tomorrow and perform the ritual once she is there." I don't feel anything about being used by three old men. They're going to ship me to some foreign ship and then I get to kill a few people. That I am looking forward to. It doesn't matter that I'm being used, as long as I get to kill.

It's been too long since I smelled fresh blood, or felt it's warmth on my skin. The urge to kill is welling up inside me, like the need to pleasure myself. Once the elders were asked to describe me. They said I am like a caged animal who enjoys the taste of blood. A beautiful woman, who lures her prey in and then strikes without warning. I think that's right. If there is anything alive that resembles the ancient beasts of Earth now long extinct, than I am closest to that.

I am confident when I say I was only taught to speak because it would make gathering data easier for them. I hated the etiquette training most of all, food is only fuel so I can kill more. I guess they wanted to make sure I still resembled the beautiful woman they make me out to be. I can't be both an aristocrat and a killer.


	4. The Archer

ACT IV – The Archer

After reading a few more important bits in the book, I switched off the monitor and left Hilda in charge of the house while I went out to meet this Sister Yayoi talked about earlier. There's only a few churches in Fuyuki II, so I figure the oldest one is where the Overseer of the War would be. Come to think of it, I probably should have asked Yayoi more about it.

Religion on Fuyuki II and from what I understand pretty much everywhere else had lost it's hold on a lot of people when the Earth died. It's understandable I guess. When you're little, it made sense to have a Godlike figure watching over everything from the clouded sky overhead. In space well… that's another story since there's no sky. No sky, no clouds. No clouds, no Heaven. When someone pictures Heaven it's always this wonderful place in the sky above the clouds. A lot of the Japanese simply discarded Christianity altogether and went back to the Buddhist ways. Though there are some people that still hold onto the old ways. Everyone's gotta find their own way I guess.

I yawn as I walk down the cold metallic streets, my hands in my pockets. The church is on the north edge of the ship, so I need to take a bus to get there. I've never had the need to go over there before so I really don't know what to expect. That part of the ship is sort of… I guess isolated would be a good word for it. There isn't a whole lot of buildings or anything at all there, the church just sort of sits there on it's own like it owns that whole section. When I think about it, it doesn't surprise me at all when I consider that a moderator of the Holy Church calls that place her home.

When I get off the bus nearest to the church what I see actually surprises me. I'm not surprised in a good way either. The only word I can think of to describe the sight in front of me is ostentatious. In front of me was a large lake, surrounding this lake were at least fifty or so "trees". I call them trees because they are huge statues made out of metal in the shape of trees. In the middle of the lake there's a building that's unmistakably a church, a long path cutting through the middle of the lake leads from the bus stop to the church. I guess they really pulled all the stops with this one.

I start off down the path lined with trees with no clue what to expect inside the church. "I hope the Sister isn't a megalomaniac or something…" I mumble to myself. If I were a megalomaniac… and I'm not… this is the kind of place I would hang out in. Still, this is the biggest lake I've ever seen. In parks there's usually at least one small pond, but never something so big as to call it a lake. They hold no value since there's no ecosystem in space so it's purely for landscaping.

I reach the large double doors and step forward towards the door expecting it to slide upward like all the other doors… only to find that it doesn't and I end up smacking my head into the wood. Wait a minute… wood? Doors aren't made out of wood anymore. This had to have been imported from Earth. The wood had to be old since there aren't any lumber operations on Earth anymore. In fact there hasn't been for about a hundred years.

Feeling a bit embarrassed after hitting my head, I put my hands on the double doors and pushed them open. Inside looks surprisingly normal despite the way the outside, two rows of pews with a podium up front. Behind the podium was a table and sitting at the table in a provocative position was a Sister smoking a cigarette.

Her hair is definitely blonde since she has bits of it poking out of her hat, yet she was at least half Japanese judging by her face. She definitely didn't have the air of a Sister about her at all, she sat in the chair leaning back so the chair's front legs came up off the ground. Her feet were on the table and she doesn't seem to pay me any mind even as I start to approach her.

After taking a particularly long drag on her cigarette she nonchalantly turned her head to face me.

"The hell do you want? Confession?" Smoke billowed out of her mouth as she spoke, her voice wasn't anything like I'd picture a Sister's to be. Her voice seemed to cut at the air like razors, like she was a former criminal who was just doing this to get a fresh start. I couldn't do anything but stand baffled. After a few seconds she got annoyed and stood up facing me. "You kill somebody? Bang your sister? Come on tell me, I may not forgive you but God will." She pressed as she extinguished her cigarette in the ashtray on the table.

The irony of this foul mouthed Sister almost made me laugh. "Call me crazy for asking, but are you Sister Marque?" If there is a God, I considered praying to him or her for this nun in front of me not to be Sister Marque. Thankfully I'm in the right place to do so.

"Yeah I'm Sister Marque, now hurry up and tell me why you're here. I got shit to do." Her lips curled into a frown as she took out a cigarette and a lighter from somewhere in her robes. She pops the cigarette into her mouth and flicks the lighter.

"I had a few questions about the War. I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about." No point in beating around the bush anymore. There isn't anyone here right now so as long as no one is listening by any other means I should be able to get away with talking at least somewhat openly.

Her face perked up a little when I mentioned the War. "You must be the last one then." She says simply after taking a long drag on the cigarette clutched in her teeth. I guessed by last one she meant Master, which means the 6 other Servants have been summoned already. "Alright whatever, I guess I'll answer some of your questions." She heaves a sigh and plops back down in her seat, pointing at the other seat opposite her on the other end of the table.

I quickly make my way over and sit across from her. I'll just ask the important things now since I really don't want to deal with this Sister any more than I have to. I get the feeling she doesn't particularly want to be here, and I'm probably pissing her off by just talking to her like this. I imagine she's only doing it because she's obligated as the Observer.

"My first question is obviously what something as important as the Holy Grail is doing here in space?" I can only assume someone brought it here or something. I don't even know what the Grail would look like but I assume it's some sort of cup, after all that's what everyone says right?

Sister Marque haves another sigh at my question. "I dislike stating the history of you Magi so I'll keep it short. When the ships that now house humanity were built, you people were sure to have a hand in it. Cut off from the Earth and it's supply of Mana, you Magi were destine to whither and die off. So, the greatest Magi families of the age came up with this idea which now is pretty much the rule around here." She explains while looking very bored.

"Integrate magic with technology right?" I ask. For as long as I can remember, Magi have been told to do this. Not just because with the advancement it became easier to hide, but because we had to learn to do so to survive.

Marque nods. "Right. So they built machines to siphon mana from the Earth's atmosphere and distribute it through the ships via artificial ley lines built into each ship's infrastructure."

I nod. Every Magi is told this story eventually. It's the reason why we're still able to cast magic up here in the vacuum of space. "This has what to do with the Grail?"

Sister Marque frowns and narrows her eyes at me. "Shut up and let me finish you little prick. What you don't know, is that the heirs of the original three families that made the War in the first place got together again, not long after the ships were completed and Earth was evacuated. At several places were these artificial ley lines intersect, they recalled the memories of the ritual used to start the Grail Wars via the Einsbern homunculus's memories and sort of… amended the rules a little." She explains while taking short drags on her cigarette. "They moved the Grail Wars to space. The ritual would select a ship randomly and materialize the Holy Grail there at one of the places where the ley lines intersect. Of course the Holy Church wanted to confirm this, so here I am. The Grail has been in a dormant state for about three hundred years, only to start these Wars back up now." She finished and threw the butt of the cigarette into the ashtray in front of her.

"That seems like an awful lot of work just to start that old Magi blood feud again." I scratch the back of my head as I attempt to take in everything the Sister just told me.

Sister Marque crosses her legs in a rather un Sister-like fashion. "You'd be surprised what people will do to get a hold of a wish. Even if it's just one."

"Right… I think that's all I really wanted to know for now." I say and stand up from the chair.

"Good, my fingers were getting twitchy. I'm used to hunting Magi not babysitting them. Now get out of here and summon your Servant so I can go home." Sister Marque waves me off. Not that I need to be told twice, for some reason she seems to really hate Magi. I get the feeling it would be bad if I asked why, so I simply leave the church behind.

On the way back home I take the time to think about what I'm going to do from now on. I said I would fight with Yayoi, that much hasn't changed. I don't really have a wish I want granted, nothing realistic anyway. I guess being able to shoot plasma from my eyes would be pretty nice. Do I miss my parents? Absolutely. Would I wish for them to be brought back? I don't think so. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that the dead stay dead. No amount of Magic in this world can bring the dead back to life. Even the Servants are only here temporarily. Would I wish to have Earth fixed? To save humanity and allow us to live there again? It's a worthy wish to be sure, I'm sure a lot of people would wish for that. I'm not convinced though, humanity has been in space way too long to just suddenly go back down to Earth and pick up where we left off. Our immune systems couldn't handle it for one. Honestly, I think we'd probably screw up the planet a second time.

I arrive at home, ignoring Hilda while dodging her attempt to hit me with the door. I make my way down into my basement, the basement that I rarely ever use. In my head I flip my switch to prepare for what I'm about to do. If I'm going to support Yayoi, I have to devote myself to that in my head. I read that Masters are as much in danger of being killed as Servants are, because it's far easier to slay a Master. So no matter what happens in this War, Yayoi must not be killed. I don't have a wish, so I have to support hers no matter what it is. She's all I have left, her and Hilda. As I draw the Magic Circle I'm going to use to summon my Servant, I shed my identity as Jin the High School Student that I've been living happily for awhile now and become Jin the Magus. Magi are always near death, as such I have to be prepared to kill as well. I've never killed someone before. Hopefully I won't have to, even though I know deep in the back of my head that it's wishful thinking.

There was an incantation written in that book. The one that would let me command my Servant, the Command Spells on my shoulder were destined that I do so. I recall the words and switch on my Circuits. The door opens and the blood begins to flow through.

"_Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Five perfections for each repetition."_ The Circle begins to emanate a bright light, so bright that I'm forced to close my eyes.

"_And now, let the filled sigils be annihilated in my stead! Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade!"_ I feel an explosion of wind, my clothes and my hair flutter inside it. The wind creates a vortex that engulfs the whole basement. My job as a Master is to anchor the Servant to the world and provide it with enough mana to materialize itself.

"_If thou submittest to the call of the Holy Grail and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond!" _I feel a searing pain that begins in my shoulder and it runs through my outstretched arm.

"_I make my oath here! I am that person who is to become the virtue of all Heaven's! I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades!"_ I can see the light growing brighter, even through my closed eyelids. The wind maelstrom of magical energy grows fiercer and the pain in my arm spreads throughout my body. I grit my teeth to deal with it.

"_Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words, come past thy restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance!"_ The maelstrom increases even further and I'm sent flying backwards by it, my back hits the wall and I slide down the cold metal surface. I open my eyes to find everything had been blown about. The boxes that were down here containing things had been ripped apart and their contents were strewn about like the place had just been hit by a tornado, which wasn't really far off. I feel some sort of… connection in my body. My mana is draining away, meaning that I have successfully summoned a Servant.

I sat, catching my breath and coughing as I wait for the dust to settle. I guess I should have cleaned up down here more. More importantly however was this… in the center of my summoning circle stood a girl.

From head to toe it was clear she wasn't from Japan, or even anywhere near it. Her red hair was tied into a ponytail and on top of her head was what could only be described as a cowboy hat. She wore a denim vest with buttons on the front, though only one of them was done, and her very large breasts were threatening to pop out at any given time. It didn't look like she was wearing pants, but it was only because they were extremely short denim shorts that exposed a lot of her thighs. On her hips she had two pistol holders made from brown leather, sheathed in them were Colt .45s. Two of them. Slung across her back was a Remmington rifle, the leather strap crossed across her breasts, squeezing provocatively at them. She was bare all the way down her long slender legs until I saw her boots. Brown leather cowboy boots complete with spurs hooked on them. She stepped towards me with a wide smile on her face, which had many freckles on it. She was pretty young, can't be more than my age. However she was without a doubt, unmistakably American.

She stepped towards me and tipped her hat, leaning down in front of me which made her ample breasts bounce noticeably. "Well ain't you a cutie pie. Yer my Master ain't ya?" She asks in an accent I've only heard in old American movies.


	5. Melee

ACT V – Melee

My Servant stands before me in a cloud of dust. Frankly I'm speechless, I know I should open my mouth to say something but… damn her breasts are just too big. Why the hell would she dress like that? I have to mentally make sure my jaw is not hanging down to the floor. She certainly isn't as heroic looking as Saber is, everything about her is sexualized. It's freakin' too much to bear.

"I'm gonna ask ya again. Yer my Master right? Cuz if yer not…" Her hand flicks to her waist and grabs one of her pistols and in an instant I can feel the cold barrel on my temple. I'd better say something, or else she's going to blow my head off right here.

I manage to nod. "Yeah, I guess I am." What the hell? I summon my first Servant and THAT'S the best I can come up with?

The girl in front of me smiled and stood up while holstering her gun. "Well that's good. Yer pretty cute for a foreigner, I'd hate to have to kill ya."

"Aww too bad. I was hoping you'd get rid of him for me." Hilda pouted.

"Who's that? Some kinda ghost?" My Servant looks around in all directions for the source of the voice.

I hop to my feet. "Close enough, that's Hilda. My name's Jin." I hold out my hand.

The Servant turns her head back to me and raises an eyebrow as she looks down at my hand. After a minute she reaches out and grasps it firmly. "The name's Bonnie. Bonnie the Kid, I guess I'm here as an Archer. For secrecy's sake ya might just wanna call me Archer from now on."

I shake her hand before processing what she just said. Then it hit me. Bonnie the Kid? Everyone knows Billy the Kid, but Bonnie? "Um… did I do something wrong?" I accidently mumble out loud.

Archer tilts her head. "Hm? No. Feels to me yer summonin' went fine."

"Well aren't you supposed to be…?" I'm not sure how sensitive a subject it is, so it might be a good idea to tread lightly.

"Oh right. Well I guess it would be a bit unexpected. Let's just say I fooled the history books a little." She shrugs.

"Fooled history?" I scratch my head and look her over. I guess technically it's possible, albeit unlikely. Well if she IS hiding something I guess she has her reasons.

"Introductions are over. Let's kick this shindig off. Come on." Without wasting any more time she forcibly grabs my hand and leads me up the stairs and out the front door without enough time for Hilda to even say anything else.

Outside it's almost evening so they'll be turning off the hologram overhead soon. "Do you even know what you're doing?" I manage to get my hand back and Archer turns back to look at me. I would have rather prepared a bit more and waited at home for Yayoi to come back but Archer seems really eager.

In a flash faster than my eyes can see Archer grabs one of her pistols again and twirls it in her fingers. "Course I do. Find our enemies and blow their freakin' heads apart." She relies with a pretty creepy grin.

"Aren't you curious about the world at all? It's changed a lot since your days you know." Filling her in on what's happened might be a good idea, also… those weapons of hers might be pretty dangerous. I should tell her that there's certain places she shouldn't fire them off.

"Not particularly. Servants automatically learn stuff about the age we're summoned to. So don't ya worry about it." She explains. Come to think of it, I think I read something about that.

As we talked I heard the overhead hologram switch off with a click and expose the beautiful stars of space, however Archer didn't seem to pay it any mind as the sky turned off and the street lights flicked on. "Let's go. We're wastin' time." Archer grabs my hand and leads me along the street.

()()()

_Meanwhile, Deck 3…_

The lower decks of Fuyuki II aren't as nice and peaceful as they are on Deck 1. Most of the criminal activity on the station takes place on the lower station. Decks 2 and 3 are the more mild decks as it's where a lot of the middle class lives. Everything below Deck 3 however is where things start to get bad.

I found myself here only because Saber said he sensed something below the graveyard on Deck 1. I've never been down here before since there's never been a need and I've never met someone from a lower deck. I told Jin that I would be back to make dinner for him, but now that Saber is dragging me around I don't know if I can make it. I'd probably be scared if I was down here by myself.

My family's specialty in magic lies in tracking. We have the ability to see traces of mana in the air beyond what any normal magus can, unfortunately because of this it's harder to defend ourselves because it makes normal vision hard. Every magus or magical object emits a smoke like aura and sometimes it obstructs things, from a young age Magi of the Sakuraba family have to learn to see the world in a different way. In my eyes, the world is divided into "things containing mana" and "things not containing mana". There's speculation saying that this ability is a new type of hereditary Mystic Eyes. Either way, my Magic Circuits are poor and it's actually pretty hard for me to use magic.

"You are thinking about that boy are you not?" Saber asks as he walks next to me. The scenery of Deck 3 is very different. There's almost no scenery, everything including the ceiling above is made of metal, it's very plain and dismal. Grey metal from top to bottom with the occasional tree on the roadside. The houses are all square shaped with almost no individuality to them. It's nothing fancy, and designed to be just enough. It made me appreciate being born on Deck 1 where almost everyone has luxuries of some kind.

"I can't help it…" I avoid looking at Saber.

"I do not have the right to tell you to leave him alone, but I will at least suggest that you keep your mind on the task at hand. There is an enemy about, you must not let your mind wander needlessly." Saber frowns. Thankfully there aren't any people around, he would draw a lot of attention.

He was right, if I don't get my head in the game I could get killed… if that happens then Jin would be devastated. I take a breath and try to focus my vision. Thankfully a Servant's aura is different than anything else's so it's not that hard to tell where to go. "It's leading towards the docks." I inform Saber. Luckily it didn't look like we were going to have to fight in a residential district.

"Are they trying to leave the station for safety?" Saber asks curiously, he's looking pretty restless.

"I doubt it. We're right here, there's no reason for them to leave." No matter how weak a Servant is, there's no point in running away. No, whoever we're following they'll stay here. I'm not even sure if they even know we're following them or not. "If I were in their position… I guess I would lead them away from populated areas." I thought out loud.

Saber nods in satisfaction. "It seems our opponents are honorable ones. I wish to meet them." He clenches his fist around the hilt of his sword. He turns to me with a look in his eye that longs for battle. "Let us go meet them."

I nod point Saber in the right direction. The trail leads straight into the shipyard, so it's pretty easy for him to follow if I give him directions. Our feet make the familiar noise of the plastic based rubber colliding with the metal on the streets. I look overhead and see nothing but the rafters and supports for the decks above us.

We get close to the observation quarter. The docks are designed to be able to see outside, if a transport or freighter gets close enough you can watch them dock from here. As we approach the docks an iron gate stops our progress. At least until Saber takes it upon himself to rip the gate off it's hinges and toss it to the ground with an ear splitting clang.

I rub my ears, I think the noise popped them. "If they didn't know they're being followed before, they probably do now." I say as I follow Saber as he silently passes through the gates without even taking a glance back at the destroyed gate. We should probably hurry, these docks are bound to be monitored by the FDS so we can't afford to linger too long. It probably would have been better to sneak in…

The warehouses of the docks stretch upward. These large buildings were dangerous and there were plenty of vantage points on the tall docking equipment and cranes. Even stranger was the fact that this place was bleeding magical energy from everywhere which made it hard for me to see anything, if we got into a fight I couldn't do much anyway. The way things are right now though it's like walking through a dense fog. "Saber… I can't see." I inform him. That's the downside to my eyesight. In places that bleed magical energy like this or in places holding no magical energy at all, I may as well be blind.

"Fear not, the enemy Servant is close enough I can sense it. No harm will come to you as long as I am near." Saber patted my head which made me feel a bit better. I don't like not being able to see. Luckily there is rarely a point where I am completely blind.

I hear a noise coming from the rooftop of the building right next to us.

"Master please get back!" I feel Saber pick me up with one arm and retreat a little. Through the cloud of magic I see a figure slam into the ground where we had just been standing a moment before. The figure roars like a wild animal and stands up.

Even in the haze of my vision he still stands out. I thought Saber was big, but this guy in front of us is the biggest human I've ever seen in my life. He's standing at least seven feet tall, taller even that Saber, the weapon in his hand is just as long. From what I can see it's a sword, a seven foot long claymore that's either radiating it's own magical energy or on fire. His shirt looked like it was made out of fur as did the kilt he was wearing which led me to believe he was Scottish. His tree trunk like arms put even Saber's muscular body to shame.

In front of me, I see Saber draw the sword from his hip. Come to think of it, it's the first time I've ever seen it out of it's leather sheath. It didn't look like much, but when Saber grabbed it by the hilt it released an explosion of energy that anyone even without my eyes could see. In an instant Saber's body was covered in silver armor, it must be pretty light armor because the girth of his body didn't change at all.

When Saber drew his sword, the hulking man in front of us raised it above his head uttering a low growl that seemed to take my breath away. He has to be Berserker. I'm useless in this fight so I can't support Saber at all, since this is most likely Berserker we're dealing with, we should run for now. "Saber let's-!"

"Interesting, even an animal has his honor. Very well, let us do battle on equal grounds!" Before I could finish my order, Saber charges in eager for battle. I guess I can't suppress a warrior's fighting spirit no matter how hard I try.

Berserker stood unmoving before Saber's charge unafraid of the smaller man before him. Gripping his sword in both hands, Saber swung at Berserker's torso the speed of the swing unleashed what felt like a small hurricane of wind that I could feel even behind Saber.

Barely moving at all Berserker simply stepped back and jammed the blade of his huge sword into the ground, which was an achievement considering how thick the metal is. In an instant Berserker had avoided Saber's blow, his sword connecting with Berserker's.

"…..!" With a bestial roar that seemed to make the whole station shudder, Berserker stepped forward and let go of his sword, leaving it impaled in the ground. Reaching forward he grabbed Saber's sword hand and flung him aside like a rag doll as if he weighed little more than paper sack.

I heard the crash as Saber was flung into one of the storage buildings, ahead of me I can barely make out the figure of Berserker retrieving his sword from the ground. That had probably caught Saber off guard because he wasn't expecting Berserker to ditch his weapon for a grab. Thankfully I can still feel that Saber is still alive, though he took a bit of damage.

Saber came charging out of the now wrecked building in a cloud of dust there was a bit of blood dripping from his head but otherwise he seemed fine. Servants really are something, I have no doubt a human would have been killed if Berserker had thrown them like that.

Berserker lowers his knees and heaves up his sword with both hands as Saber charges at him. Saber reaches the range of Berserker's sword and he swings. If Saber's swinging was like a hurricane, then Berserker's was like an A-bomb. As if expecting this Saber jumps and clears both Berserker and his sword, positioning himself behind the giant for a free strike.

Not passing up the opportunity Saber strikes at Berserker's back leaving a bloody gash straight down Berserker's spine. Berserker didn't flinch, nor utter any cry of pain even though he just took significant damage. Before Saber had time to retreat Berserker pivoted on his feet and brought his sword down from overhead. With no room to jump back, Saber was forced to bed his knees and roll to the side as the huge hunk of metal collided into the ground with an earth-shattering clang. When he lifted his sword back up, a large cut had been made into the metal deck of the ship.

"Grr… this could be difficult." Saber growled and retreated a distance away just out of Berserker's range. Something tells me I'm really glad I can't see the fighting too well or I'd be scared out of my mind.

This time Berserker takes initiative and takes a big step forward with a massive swing that's probably strong enough to cut one of the warehouses in the harbor in half. Berserker's sword is as long as his body, so if he takes a big step forward like that it can cut off Saber's escape route, in a large area like this he can swing it any direction he wants and keep Saber right where he wants him.

After Saber dodges to the side Berserker twists his body, using the momentum to swing the flat of the blade where Saber just landed. With a thud the blade collides and sends Saber sliding across the deck towards the docking port, Saber had blocked it with his sword to avoid a direct hit but the force still did a number on his arms.

"….!" With another roar Berserker grabs his sword in both hands and charges at Saber with surprising speed. Saber may be the best Servant with the sword and have the best all around parameters, but Berserker is at the top of the list in power and strength. This Berserker is starting to be troublesome, that long weapon of his doesn't allow Saber to get close enough to deliver a killing blow. I can't back Saber up with anything more than healing magic at this point either, meaning we're at a real disadvantage here. If we're going to take this guy out, we need a plan.

Berserker reaches Saber and brings down his sword and Saber sidesteps it by a hair, the blade shaves off some of his hair and nicks his shoulder enough to receive a large gash on it. The wound is now leaking blood and Saber was unable to make a counterattack while dodging.

"Saber! We need to get out of here!" I yell at Saber while healing his wounds, this is about all I can manage as support.

"Tch." Saber clucks his tongue in disappointment but he probably realizes too that this is a bad situation. It's clear now why Berserker led us here, it was because he could rage around without worry. His Master is also nowhere in sight, which worries me.

Berserker doesn't attack, he just stands there as Saber gets to his feet but his eyes watch Saber and allows him to walk by. Their eyes meet and Saber nods, whether out of respect or thanks I don't know. Berserker growls in response.

"It seems as though we are permitted to leave. I do not like it, but we have little choice at the moment." Saber informs me and lightly touches my shoulder to let me know he's there. I think he's overestimating my eyes, I can see his outline just fine but I think he's just being considerate.

"Why didn't they finish us off? Now that I think about it, it would have been easy." I ask as Saber picks me up under his arm. It's uncomfortable, but he acts like he did it instinctively because he can run faster. Honestly, I like the way Jin carries me better…

"I do not know. Perhaps it was not part of their objective. Whatever the case may be, we should not count on it ever happening again." Saber replies as he makes his way towards the elevator that led us down here. Once away from the docks, the haze was no longer in my vision and my eyesight returned to normal. I heave a sigh of relief, we got lucky tonight. I have no doubt in my mind that Berserker might have killed Saber, there is no way of knowing what that hulk's Noble Phantasm may be and I don't want to expose Saber's too early in the war unless I'm sure it will turn the tide of the fight in my favor.

Saber took on his spirit form once we returned to Deck 1 and upon doing so I feel a weight lift off my shoulders. I can see the stars above my head again which means it must be getting pretty late. I should get back and cook dinner for Jin, he must be waiting for me. I hope he's not too worried…

()()()

_Meanwhile, Deck 1: Corporate District_

The Corporate District of Fuyuki II houses all the major businesses and shopping centers. It's probably considered the heart of Deck 1 due to the fact that so much money passes through here every day, it's the heart that pumps the blood called money through the station and the stations beyond due to our international dealings.

Archer has been dragging me along for about an hour now and I'm finding it hard to keep up with her, though I'll admit the view from behind her isn't bad…

"H-Hang on… I need a minute." I let Archer know I need a break, if I knew how far we were going to go I would have used my buckle. Luckily we passed a corporate park with a couple benches so I make my way over to one and sit down.

"Ya need ta get more stamina if you're gonna run around with me." Archer followed me but looked a bit disappointed but sits next to me on the bench anyway.

I spy a vending machine a distance away, which is nice since I could use a juice or something. "I'm thirsty. You want anything Archer?"

Archer grinned. "Well since ya offered just get me anythin'. It's a man's job ta escort the lady right?"

I blush a little but scratch my cheek to hide it. I don't know what she thinks our relationship is, but she makes it sound like we're on a date or something. Also I have my doubts about how ladylike Archer actually is. I make my way over to the machine and toss a few coins in. I grab myself a can of raspberry mango juice while I decide what to get Archer. She's American and considering her personality she'd probably want beer or something, like they'd have booze in a vending machine. Well, coffee is always a safe bet.

I return to the bench to find Archer whistling a tune and hand her drink to her while I pop the top on mine. Raspberry mango is a pretty new flavor, but you can never go wrong with adding mango to anything. It's pretty good and it refreshes my body.

"Hey… how do ya open this damn thing?" Next to me Archer is trying her best to open the can by twisting the top of it like a jar.

"I thought you said Servants get information about the age they're summoned into." I say as I take the can from her and pop the lid open.

Archer glares at me and snatches the can from my hand. "Thanks… ow it's hot." She flinches a little when the coffee burns her lips. "Guess it didn't cover opening cans… hey this coffee isn't bad." She approves of the drink once she lets it cool down a little.

"I figured it was a safe bet since you're an American." I reply as I take a big swig of my juice.

"Yer pretty thoughtful ain't ya?" Archer smiles and pats her lap. "As a reward, ya wanna rest yer head here?"

L-Lap pillow? Is she serious? I can't say I wouldn't enjoy it… her lap does look really comfortable. Yayoi's image flashes in my head for a split second. I heave a sigh. "I-I think I'd better pass…" God of manliness forgive me… I may have just screwed a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Archer shrugs. "Yer choice, Master. Yer missin' out though." She replies with another seductive grin. My soul is crying out to me right now. I KNOW DAMN WELL I'M MISSING OUT!

I crane my neck upwards and look up at the stars overhead. I don't know why, but my eyes always seem to be drawn to them. Looking at them calms my soul and relaxes me, they say star light causes cancer but I think I'll risk it they're too beautiful not to look at.

"Hey, what's with that fog? That's definitely not normal." Suddenly Archer speaks again. She must be seeing things, there's no way there could be fog on the station.

I turn my head to where she's looking. Sure enough, near the top of the station a little ways off was a dense cloud of some kind. It wasn't moving but it did appear to be growing in size. Archer was right, that definitely isn't normal. As we were watching it the cloud became thicker and more dense.

A large figure starts to appear within the fog after about five minutes, neither Archer nor I said anything. The cloud of fog had an ominous feel about it, like there was something dark in it. It turns out that wasn't far from the truth. A mass began to appear from out of the fog, slowly drifting out of it as if a breeze carried it.

A large object made of wood, a bow if I had to call it anything revealed itself from within the mist above the city. Slowly more of it came out of the fog, tall masts with sails fling and a large wooden form, rigging holding up the masts and the sails came out. Soon the entire thing was in view. It was without a doubt a ship. Not a modern ship made of metal to drift through space, no… this ship was meant to sail a different kind of sea. The seas of Earth were where this ship called it's home. I know because tales of these kinds of ships survived time and tales so terrifying drift on the winds of time never forgotten. The flag sailing on the tallest mast was unmistakable. Everyone in the world knew what it meant to face a ship flying a black flag with a skull and crossed bones.

Above the city of Fuyuki II now sailed relic of ages past… it was a pirate ship. The mass of wood turned and Archer and I could now see the ship's name etched on the back. A chill ran through my spine and my entire body got goose bumps. The captain of this ship was a terror of all terrors. Tales of his brutality and treachery survived even the destruction of the Earth. The most known pirate captain in the world had made his appearance once again, terrifying the skies of Fuyuki.

The name of the ship is etched into everyone's memories forever.

_Queen Anne's Revenge._

"Er… Archer?"

"Yeah?"

"I think we have a big problem here…"

"Yer tellin' me…"


	6. The Rider and The Assassin

ACT VI – The Rider and The Assassin

Archer and I stare up at the large sinister looking pirate ship now floating above Fuyuki II. Its black sails and flags flutter as though being pushed along by a wind which isn't really there. At the moment the ship is just floating silently above the city giving me a really uneasy feeling. Obviously this was a Servant's doing and if I had to make a guess I'd say it was either Rider or Caster. Archer stares up at the ship as though she's surveying it or trying to line up a shot, while I contemplate just running the hell away for the time being. It's not like I'm scared, I just find the situation to be highly disadvantageous for Archer and I.

"That thing's got a full crew. I can see em on the deck." Archer informs me as she pulls the rifle from her back. I was amazed at how far she could see, it was beyond what any human could. Then again, she is a Servant. I should stop being so surprised, if I get all wide-eyed about every little thing that happens from now on I'll never get anything done.

I slap my cheeks and get my game face on. It's time to man up and jump into this thing. I have no clue what's about to happen, but that's part of the fun right? All that's left to do is do my best and take this jerk out to save Yayoi the trouble later.

"Can you cap any of them from here?" Right about now I'm pretty thankful that I drew Archer as my Servant. I myself am a hand to hand fighter, while Archer is probably the best Servant at long range. With that big ship in the sky, it would be nice if she could pick some of the pirate crew out.

"Not from here. Maybe if we get closer…" Archer replied as she begins to survey the surrounding area.

I don't know how one Servant has an entire crew aboard the ship, but I bet if we can kill some of them it will make our job easier. Fortunately we're in the Corporate Sector of the city, meaning there are plenty of tall buildings Archer can get a good shot from. On the downside, if that ship has cannons on it there would be no place to hide from the fire, we'd be sitting ducks. I guess it couldn't hurt to take the chance on it if it means killing that Servant. As far as the crew goes, I can ask the captain about it when we're kicking his teeth in.

"What about there?" I point to a tall office building about ten stories tall and only a couple of blocks away.

Archer nods, her lips curling into a satisfied grin. "Yup, that'll work. Let's hurry up and git that varmint. I wanna raid that ship too, I bet there's all kinds of treasure in there."

I stifle a chuckle and dig my hand into my pocket, taking out my belt buckle. I guess I shouldn't be surprised she wants to loot the ship.

"What's that thingamajig?" Archer asks curiously pointing to the round metal buckle in my hand.

"A shortcut." I push the button and wait for the flashing like that tells me the device is emitting the disruption signal. After a moment I feel gravity's hold on me lessen and I feel the familiar sensation of being weightless. I hold my hand out to Archer, I have to touch her or else she'll still be grounded. I could always make her take the elevator up the building, but that would be rude and less fun.

Without hesitating at all Archer grabs my hand and closes her slender fingers around mine. Her hands are surprisingly smooth; with all the things she did during her life I expected them to be rougher. Pushing the thought of how smooth her skin is to the back of my mind, I bend my knees and kick off the ground towards the tall office building.

"Ah! What in tarnation!" Archer began to squirm in surprise and she starts to grip my arm tightly with both hands, hugging it close to her body. She looks terrified, which I find funny because I never thought a Servant was someone who could feel fear. I guess she's not used to flying, it reminds me of the first time I flew with Yayoi. She even started to cry.

As we fly towards the building I notice that the Revenge is starting to turn. I can see the front of the ship clearly now, it's adorned with what looks like a gigantic human skeleton fused into the front part of the ship. The scary part is that it isn't turning to come towards us, its turning so that the side of the ship is facing us.

"Shit! Archer, incoming!"

A bright flash came from a slot that opened in the side of the Revenge followed by an earsplitting boom that was the tell tale sound of a cannon firing. Well at least that answered one question. They do in fact have working cannons. I feel my heart skip a beat as the first ball of iron whizzed passed us and collided with the street below with an ear splitting clang as it collided with the metal street.

"Can't ya just move out of the way?" Archer yells at me.

"Doesn't work like that! Whichever direction I jump to that's the direction we have to go unless something changes our direction! Believe me I'd love to be somewhere other than here right now!" I yell back at her as another boom signifies the firing of another cannon. That's the one downside to my buckle, if there's nothing to grab onto or kick off of then I'm stuck going one direction. Newton's laws and all that.

The second cannonball misses, but I could feel the air as it passed by us meaning that it was closer than the first one. They were adjusting their position and sooner or later they'd get off a lucky shot even though we're such a small target compared to the other ships they're designed to shoot at. If they get even one direct hit we're salsa.

"They're gettin' closer! We gotta do somethin!" Archer looks down, probably contemplating just letting go and dropping to the ground. We're only about 100 feet off the ground so I have no doubt she'd survive, but that would leave me high and dry.

The Revenge fires a third time. Each shot is getting closer and closer. If I don't think of something, we're going to get hit.

I look down with Archer, my eyes falling on her body. Well, if I die at least I'll have a pretty good view. Those wide hips of hers, that outfit doesn't leave much to the imagination either. Too bad I never got to see her really shoot anything with those guns on her hips. I would have loved to see her in action. Wait a minute… her guns!

"Archer! Start shooting!"

"Huh? At what? There's nothin' ta shoot at!" Archer looks up at me, clueless.

"It doesn't matter! The recoil will force us backwards from wherever you aim, we can move!" I can't believe I didn't think of it before. If Archer can steer us right we can get out of this and get to a better position.

"Alright! Hold on ta me!" Archer orders as she climbs up my body. As she reaches eye level with me, I wrap my arms around her waist and hang on to her, doing my best despite the fact that her midriff is completely exposed under her duster and my arms are touching her skin.

In a movement faster than my eyes can perceive Archer draws the two six shooters at her side and aims in the opposite direction of where we're going. Looks like she still wants to get onto the building. She fires a shot that makes my ears ring and I can feel our speed pick up from the recoil.

The Revenge fires a cannon in response but the shot sails clear, not even close enough to make me break a sweat. Now that we're moving faster, it'll be harder for whoever is manning the cannons to adjust to the position of such a small target.

"Those yella lily livered polecats! I'll make em pay for shootin' at The Kid with a cannon!" Archer growls and fires three more shots from her pistols, causing us to build up a pretty good amount of speed; enough to reach the top of the office building in a few seconds.

As Archer yells gibberish at the Revenge I focus my attention on getting ready to land on the rooftop. We're going so fast that if I screw this up I'll fall and break something… or worse. I let one hand go off of Archer and put my hand on the buckle, the second that I see the surface of the rooftop pass under us I switch it off.

"Archer! Handle the landing will you!" I tell her as we start to fall. We're about ten feet away from the surface of the roof . Archer positions herself so her feet hit the building first and absorb most of the impact. My feet hit the ground a second later and I hear the Revenge fire another cannon in response to our actions.

The cannonball hits the building somewhere below the roof and I feel the shockwave rock the building along with a sickening crash of the ball colliding with the steel frame. Archer and I almost get knocked off our feet, meaning the cannonball hit somewhere on the upper floors of the building.

"Archer, tell me you can hit something from here!" I shout as I try to keep my balance.

Archer shoots me a thumbs up with a grin. "Of course I can. I'll start pickin' off the crew." Much to my surprise Archer dug her hand into her cleavage and pulled out a couple of bullets.

"You keep stuff in there?" I asked curiously.

"Sure, comes in handy for robbin' banks ya know." Archer winks and flicks her wrist, opening the wheel in her pistols. She tosses the bullets in the slots and flicks it back with a click. She spins the revolver and it clicks into place.

The Revenge meanwhile has started to turn towards us and make its way closer, moving across the air on the cloud of mist that it had emerged out of.

By the time Archer had reloaded her weapons and prepared to fire the gigantic skeleton on the bow of the ship was in full view, blocking any targets Archer had before. "Looks like they're comin' this way." Archer said as she lowered her weapons.

"I don't get it. What are they doing?" I ask hoping Archer might have a clue. They could have kept firing at us with the cannon but I'm guessing whatever Servant was on board had a change of heart or something. Destroying a building would make it kind of hard to hide the fact that the city had a war between Magi going on. The Observer will have a hard enough time explaining the cannonball in the 7th floor. Sister Marque is going to be pissed.

"Rider's Master is probably there. They're blockin' my path so I can't shoot em. My guess is we're gonna have bigger problems when that ship gets here." Archer glares up at the Revenge most likely angry that we've done all this work and have nothing to show for it but a near death experience. I know that's how I'm starting to feel.

"You think we should retreat for now?" I ask, considering the option. If we found ourselves dealing with a whole crew of pirates things could get hairy. It would be pretty humiliating to get killed on the first night of the Grail War.

"Like hell. I wanna kill somethin'! We're gonna wait for em." Archer said through her gritted teeth.

"I'm inclined to agree with you, if things get bad well… I hope you can run fast." I say as I look up at the ship that is now making its way towards the building Archer and I are on.

()()()

_Meanwhile, Engineering Deck…_

Blood pours out of the FDS member's throat as I run my knife across his neck. The familiar warm liquid runs over his uniform as I push his body and watch as he crumples to the ground. I make sure to grab his submachine gun as well. The guard's last words alive were only a sickening gurgling sound as his blood spilled. It was surprisingly easy to get down here to this level, the guards are weak and easily distracted. They didn't keep their guard up at all times, so they died. It's that simple.

Next to me my Servant, Assassin, removes his own knife from the other guard's skull with a loud crunching sound. The bowler hat on his head tilted at a jaunty angle. The rest of his clothes are plain and unassuming, he wears a grey tailored suit with a black overcoat over it and a pair of expensive looking black shoes.

"Not that I'm complaining about getting to kill these fine gentlemen, but would you mind explaining to me how sabotaging the ship will win us the war love?" Assassin asks in his very heavy Cockney accent. His speech is always very refined and elegant, but I think he talks too much. A Servant should just follow its Master's orders.

"I will repeat myself only once. We will disable the ship and then demand that the other Masters surrender and order their Servants killed. If not, we drop Fuyuki II out of orbit and plunge it into the Earth." I explain for the second time as I wipe my blade clean and replace it in its hidden location behind my back.

"That's positively diabolical… I adore it." Assassin's lips curl into an eerie grin exposing his pure white teeth.

Our first step in the takeover of the colony is to plant explosives on the ship's engines. Which is precisely why I am carrying over 30 pounds of C4 in a duffel bag. Fuyuki II has six engines, so I will use five pounds for each one. Five pounds is enough to level a city block, so it should be plenty to destroy an engine. I will detonate them by remote of course and I will be well away from the area once they are set off. Which brings Assassin and I to the engineering deck.

I creep through the metal corridor leading to the first engine chamber. The FDS member's submachine gun hanging at my side from a strap slung over my shoulder, I have to watch my strength output when using it or I could rip it apart with my cyberized arms. Now that the two guards patrolling the hallways were dead it was eerily quiet. There would probably be more guards in or near the engine room itself, but if they are anything like the previous FDS members they won't be any trouble at all.

"Miss Einsbern might I ask you a question?" Assassin asks as the two of us round the corner, following the glowing signs overhead that point to the engine room.

"Make it quick." I heave a sigh. If I indulge him just this once I can probably get him to stay quiet for at least a little while. I honestly never expected London's famous serial killer to be so polite. If I wasn't afraid he'd stab me in the back for it I'd sew his mouth shut. I already have to be wary around him, being a woman.

"Shouldn't a woman as beautiful as you be attending banquets instead of magus wars?" Assassin asks with genuine curiosity.

"I have never wanted to do anything else except this. Having my body coated in blood is the greatest pleasure I could ask for." I answer seriously. I've never known anything else, so why should I think about anything else? Only the objective right now matters, there's nothing else in my head.

Assassin grins at my response. "My dear I believe we will get along splendidly."

My answer seemed to satisfy Assassin for the time being and he began to focus once again on the task at hand. Holding his jagged knife with the blade inward Assassin scouts ahead after I signal him to check around the corner. It's best to take things like this slowly; one screw up could cause someone to be alerted to our presence at trip the alarm. Thankfully there aren't any cameras to worry about since I ordered Assassin to destroy them all earlier. After our work here is done, patrols in the area will most likely increase significantly which is perfect because there will be more casualties when the explosions are triggered.

We make our way down the final corridor and find ourselves in front of a large door labeled **Engine Room 1**. The door itself is made out of thick metal and kept locked with a ten digit keypad on the wall to the right of the door. Obviously I don't know the code, but I do have a way to open the door.

"You wouldn't happen to have a key would you love? I can't pick that kind of a lock." Assassin scratches his head and stares at the door.

"Don't worry. I can." I drop my gear on the ground and clench my fists, spreading my legs apart so I don't knock myself off balance. Using all of my strength I drive my fist into the center of the door releasing a loud metal on metal banging noise. The door warps with the force of my blow leaving a fist shaped imprint on it. Normally it would only take one punch, but the door seems to be thicker than I thought. With another punch I take the door off the hinges and I immediately kick it in.

"I guess I'll go in first. As a Gentleman I can't let my partner get hurt." Assassin readies his knife and rushes into the room. I hear the screams of the engineers inside as he goes for the man heading towards the alarm on the opposite wall.

The room itself is very large, almost as big as a small hangar because of the massive size of the engines which are almost as big as a two story house. I grab my gear from the floor and enter the room with the submachine gun pointed in front of me. There looks to be about 12 men inside. Ten Engineers and two more FDS security guards.

The loud noise of the engines and machinery almost drowned out the gunfire and the screaming that erupted as Assassin crossed the ten yards from the door to the opposite wall in an instant and drives his knife through the engineer's throat causing blood to erupt on the wall in front of him. The last thing he saw was the alarm button barely within arms reach as he dropped to the floor in a pool of his own blood.

One of the FDS guards opens fire on me while the other focuses on Assassin as he is darting about the room and killing the engineers in single blows.

I take cover behind a machine and listen as the guard's bullets ping off the machinery. My pulse begins to increase and my heart pounds causing the sort of euphoria during battle that I live for. I hear a break in the fire as the guard reloads his automatic weapon and I take the opportunity to sidestep out of my cover and pull the trigger on my own submachine gun.

A short and accurate burst from my weapon caused my enemy to be riddled with bullets and fall to the ground where he coughed up a large amount of blood and died. In the fray my long hair got tussled and was now in my eyes, a quick toss of my head fixes the problem and I begin the process of cleaning the room of the screaming engineers. Assassin meanwhile had already killed the second FDS member while I was fighting with the first.

In a few short seconds, the room was clear save for one terrified engineer cowering in the corner.

"P-P-P-Please d-don't kill me! I-I'm unarmed! I have a family!" The terrified man begs for his life and I can practically smell the fear on him.

I walk slowly towards him, savoring his fear. I drop the submachine gun at my side and hear it clatter to the ground. I flex my hand and approach the man, towering over him as he sunk to the floor; his knees unable to support him anymore.

"Unarmed, unaffiliated, uninvolved. These words mean nothing to me. You're a witness." I extend my arm and grab his head, enclosing my fingers around it. The man starts to scream as I clench my fist. It doesn't take long for his head to pop like a grape and spray my body and the walls with his warm blood and brain matter. I release my grip and his remains fall to the ground like a sack of trash as the remainder of his blood drains from his body onto the floor.

"You enjoyed that." Assassins says with a grin as he cleans the blade of his knife on one of the fallen guard's uniforms.

I hadn't noticed it in the commotion but my breathing had become erratic. It was the kind of breathing that one would normally associate with sexual arousal. Assassin wasn't wrong, I did feel pleasure upon crushing that man's skull in my hand. I take a deep breath to get my head straight and approach the large cylindrical engine and open the duffel bag, taking out five pounds of C4 and a detonator.

"Go watch the door." I order assassin as I prep the detonator and prepare the explosives to plant on the engine.

"Right O, love." Assassin begins to whistle "God Save the Queen" happily as he makes his way towards the doorway.

I finish prepping the explosives and plant them in a spot on the engine that's pressed against the wall. I highly doubt anyone would think to expect to check for explosives here, being that it's so out of sight. Then again, the FDS probably does have a bomb squad. It's a chance I'll have to take.

"All done then?" Assassin asks curiously. He'd been leaning against the doorway watching me plant the bomb on the first engine.

"No. This is just the start."


	7. Big Problem

ACT VII – Big Problem

Archer and I are standing on the top of a ten story skyscraper that just got hit by cannon fire from a pirate ship called Queen Anne's Revenge. It sounds just as crazy when I say it in my head. The ship is now moving towards us, suspended in midair by who knows what. It doesn't appear to have any sort of external propulsion so I can't tell how exactly it's moving either.

Next to me Archer is prepping her guns, checking them for jams and making sure that they're reloaded. After what just happened, both of us were ready to jump into action at a moments notice. My magic circuits are already switched on ready to dig into my repertoire of spells whenever I need to.

The ship slows to a stop directly above our heads and looms there for what seems like forever before Archer taps my shoulder and points to a shadowy figure standing near the edge of the ship. I can't tell anything about them through the thick mist surrounding the ship, at least not until the figure said something. The figure appears to dig into its pockets and pull out several objects which glow in various colors through the fog.

"Jackie Velvet, dazzling the stage!" The figure shouts and tosses the glowing objects in its hands.

My magus sense tingles the minute I see those. Cliché I know, but that's what it felt like. A little twitch of my brain tells me to get the hell out of the way, if any one of those hit us it's going to be bad.

"Archer, move!" I warn her and turn around to start booking it towards the other end of the roof.

Archer jumps backwards just as the colored objects collide into the roof one by one. Each one set off a bright flash followed by several explosions and colored smoke. Instinctively I cover my mouth and nose, fearing it to be gas of some kind. Next to me Archer raises her rifle toward the smoke.

"Don't worry, it's not poison. Though it would have been bad for you if you got hit." Through the smoke tinged with at least 5 different colors walks a girl no older than me.

Archer tenses up next to me and starts to squeeze the trigger.

The girl steps forward out of the smoke. Her long brown hair shines in the starlight. She's wearing a red leather overcoat over a white blouse and red skirt. Her legs were long and thin, covered in black knee-high socks. She grins at the two of us, completely un phased by the fact that my Servant is pointing a gun at her.

"I'd put that down if I were you, as there are currently six cannons from the ship overhead now pointing at both of you." Her teeth flash as she speaks, her voice rather cute and feminine. It doesn't match her personality at all.

Archer keeps her gun on the girl in front of us. My eyes turn towards the Revenge floating above our heads, looking for any sign of the Servant manning it. "That was some entrance Missy. What did ya say yer name was?" Archer asks right away.

The girl puts a hand on her hip and pops it out proudly. "Jackie Velvet is my name! Proud member of the Velvet family and Master of Rider." She announces herself with gusto as well as her Servant.

"Well now Miss Velvet, in any other situation ya certainly would have us at a disadvantage. However, ya made one big mistake here tonight." Archer says with a grin. I hope she has some kind of idea. I wasn't expecting to find the Master jump down before the Servant.

Jackie tilts her head. "Huh? What's that?" She asks curiously as if it were perfectly natural to be talking to her enemy.

"Ya picked the wrong Servant ta show yerself in front of. I can shoot ya between the eyes before ya even open yer mouth ta order yer Servant ta fire at us." Archer grins widely and tilts her hat.

The two of them stare at each other, both of them confident in their situation. Something seemed off to me though. Why would that girl go through all this trouble just to introduce herself? At least that's what I assume that's all she wanted to do, still I have the strangest feeling running through my spine right now. I think there's more to this ditzy girl than what she she's showing us now.

"Archer…" I call her to get her attention.

"Kinda busy here." She ignores me and continues her staring contest with Jackie, who is still wearing that huge grin on her face.

My eyes are still trained on the Revenge floating overhead, still no sign of Rider or anyone else… that is until I saw movement within the openings where the cannons where trained on us.

I lunge forward and grab Archer's arm. "Listen to me more often, dumbass!" I yell as I toss her light body across the roof and dive after her. The second my feet leave the ground I hear all six cannons fire with large explosions. They collide into the roof where we just were, making the building shake. A metallic creaking noise fills my ears.

"It was you who forgot something, Archer. If my Servant fires first without me telling him to, then you're screwed." Jackie chuckles and digs more of those glowing objects out of her coat which turned out to be vials of glowing liquid. "Don't misunderstand me. I didn't train all these years just to have my Servant do all the work for me." She cocks her arm back and prepares to throw the vials of liquid at us. "Hard work and guts! That's the Velvet family motto! There's just one thing I want you to know." Jackie winks. "I don't have any hard feelings against you, but I can't let an opportunity like this get away from me." She tosses the vials at us.

"Ya yellow bastards!" Archer rolls on the ground and drops her rifle. In a flash she draws both of her pistols and starts firing.

Her bullets manage to wing a couple of the vials, upon doing so at least two of them that were heading straight for us blow up in Jackie's face.

"Gyah!" I hear her utter a yelp in pain as the other vials collide with the ground and blow up beside Archer and I, covering the roof in the colored smoke.

More muzzle flashes from the Revenge open fire at us, but it wasn't from the cannons. Looking up I see multiple figures leaning over the side with rifles taking aim at us. The bullets ping off the roof and I start to look for something to hide behind. Luckily there's a huge air conditioner on top of the roof about ten feet away. I make a break for it and find that Archer had the same idea.

"You think you killed that Master?" I ask as Archer and I press our backs to the cold metal machine, listening as the bullets pepper it. At times like this I'm amazed that I'm so calm, guess my parents trained me better than I thought. I've never been in a situation like this before, so I always wondered how I'd act. Thank the stars I'm not one of those guys that freak out. That would have been embarrassing.

"Not a chance, I think I just grazed her." Archer says as she peeks her head around the corner and takes aim at a couple of the men hanging over the side of the boat. I watch as she fires a couple of shots off and retreats behind the machine again.

"We can't stay here. I bet they're reloading the cannons to take another shot at us." I heave a sigh. Why didn't I ever learn any magic for long range attacks? "Shit, you weren't lying when you said they had a full crew. The hell kind of Noble Phantasm is that?" I click my tongue in annoyance.

Archer nods "Yup. We gotta ditch em somehow. I'm not too excited about it though."

"Damn that Jackie… I think she used herself as a decoy so we'd pay less attention to the Revenge." I grit my teeth. Well, there's nothing more we can do. That ship is a hell of a nuisance, I probably got overzealous and the reason we're in this situation is my own damn fault. Can't move forward here without going back I guess. I'll think of something later.

Under my feet I feel the building start to lean to the side. We have to get out of here fast, this building could collapse. It's taken way too many hits. "Come on Archer, we're jumping." I prepare my belt buckle to help slow the descent for a safe landing to the ground.

Archer nods. "Right, I'll cover ya now git goin." She leans around the corner and starts to fire her rifle.

That's my cue and I take the opportunity to sprint towards the edge of the roof. I switch my belt buckle on and leap over the side as the bullets from the pirates on the Revenge follow me. When I'm in the air I hear the familiar sound of cannon fire.

I turn around behind me to see the air unit that Archer was hiding behind get a direct hit from the cannon and explode. "ARCHER!" In the smoke I couldn't hear the sound of her guns any more as I floated gracefully towards the ground. Frantically I check the existence of my command spell on my shoulder to make sure Archer is still alive. I heave a sigh of relief, I still feel our connection. She's alive, though I don't know what condition she's in.

My feet touch the street and I switch off my belt buckle. The Revenge has stopped firing and I can't tell where Archer is anywhere. The first thing I do is position myself behind the building so the Revenge can't see me. I should be able to move pretty good through the city without being spotted by that damn ship. I shouldn't worry about Archer too much, she can handle herself just fine. If I head back home, I bet Archer will show up eventually.

"What an embarrassing night this was… it's only the start of the war and we got our asses handed to us." I say to no one in particular and scratch the back of my head.

"Yer alive ain't ya?" I turn to my left and see Archer strolling out of the front door of the building next to the office building we just got off of.

"How exactly did you end up in there?" I tilt my head, wondering how in the hell she managed to get away.

"I had ta cover your escape, after you jumped I shot out one of the windows and jumped across into this building here." She explains. After it looked like she realized something she turns her head and winks at me. "Were ya worried about little ol me?" She grins.

"Pff. Like hell." I scoff. She's much better off than me in hostile situations. The next thing I know Archer is pinching my cheeks.

"Ow ow ow! What the hell are you doing?" I push her away.

"Ya saved my bacon earlier. Thanks." She gently cups my cheeks and kisses my forehead.

My face feels like a heater, I swear there's steam coming off of it. My heart skipped a beat when she kissed me, even if it was just on the head. I force a cough, she's pretty hot but wanting to screw my Servant is probably a bad idea. "Let's go home." I say after I shake the crazy thoughts out of my head. But damn her boobs are huge…

()()()

Somehow we managed to ditch the Revenge and get back home. My door slides open and I enter to find Yayoi and Saber in my house.

"Where have you been? I was worried sick about you! Who is that?" A barrage of questions stream from Yayoi's mouth, her eyes look like she was on the verge of tears. Saber meanwhile, just sits on my couch calmly drinking tea.

"Uh well…" I didn't even step through my doorway before it slams shut down on my head. "Ow!" I quickly step in after it slides back upward and allows me and Archer inside.

"Well Jin? Are you going to answer her?" Hilda sounds mad. Obviously she was the one that hit me with the door.

That's right. Neither of them has any idea about Archer yet. "I wanted to wait for you to get back, but Archer here decided to drag me around." I explain.

Archer waves. "Is she yer girlfriend Jin? She sounds pretty worried about ya." She says to me after greeting Yayoi.

Yayoi looks embarrassed but I'm too used to it by this point. Between Hilda and everyone at school, I'm almost starting to believe that we are going out. "Not officially anyway." I scratch my head.

"Sh-She's your Servant?" Yayoi points at Archer with a terrified look on her face. Her whole body seems to be shaking.

"Yeah, I didn't mean to make you worry or anything. Things just kind of worked out like they did." I heave a sigh. I leave out the part about us getting our ass handed to us by Rider and his Master.

"There is dirt all over you, did you run into trouble?" Finally Saber speaks, setting down his tea on my coffee table.

I look down at myself. I hadn't paid any attention to it but my shirt is torn up and my body is covered with dust and dirt. My body suit can be seen under it though the holes in my shirt.

"We had a bit of a tussle with Rider." Surprisingly Archer answers for me. "I would've kicked the bucket if Jin here didn't save my life." She pats my shoulder. Guess she appreciated it more than I thought.

"It just so happens we ran into Berserker as well." Saber informed us.

"As you can see, we're fine though. I don't know why but he let us go." Yayoi says reassuringly before I even had a chance to get worried. She knows me too well, because I would have been. She's not fit to fight or defend herself, I'm betting the reason they got out of there alive is because of Saber. I should thank him later even though I don't much like him. He saved someone close to me, no matter what the reason I'm thankful.

I heave another sigh. "Sounds like we all got our asses kicked."

"You've all had one hell of a first night. I'm glad you're both safe though." Hilda says almost happily.

After Hilda lightens the mood a bit Yayoi stands up. "I'm going to my house to get a few things. I'll be back." Saber gets up without having to be told.

"Wait, you're coming back? It's kind of late aren't you going to bed?" I ask curiously. I feel like I could pass out where I stand in all honesty, if Yayoi got into a fight too she must be as exhausted as I am.

"Of course, I'm not going to let you spend the night here alone with HER." Yayoi points towards Archer, eyeing her outfit up and down. Then it hits me. She's jealous. I guess I can't blame her. I don't like the idea of her being alone with Saber either.

"Guess I'll take this then." Archer trots over, nudges Saber aside and throws herself on the couch in a very un ladylike fashion. Archer stretches out and yawns, taking off her hat and tossing it onto the table in front of her.

"Crap…" I watch Yayoi's back as she and Saber leave the house. I don't know how I'm going to find space for all these people. I guess there's my parents room, Yayoi can use that. Saber can sleep outside for all I care, he looks like he's used to it anyway. Guess Archer wants the couch… as long as she's not bothering me I don't care what she does.

"Well aren't you the popular one." Hilda teases.

"Shut up! What the hell am I going to do? She's never stayed over here before!" I clutch my head. Spending the night in the same house with Yayoi? With any girl? Can I handle something like that?

"Ya know, yer kinda cute when yer flustered." Archer winks at me from the couch.

"I think I'd rather deal with Rider right now…"

"Quit complaining. You're a man aren't you?" Hilda scoffs.

"You see me naked every day, you should know the answer to that…" I mumble.

"I think she's tellin ya to just go for it." Archer grins.

"I'm not taking advice from a bank robber or a dead girl!" I pick up Archer's hat from off the table and throw it over her face. I make my way up the stairs, if I'm going to have people over I need to clean some stuff up. I leave Archer behind and head upstairs.

"I robbed more than banks ya know…" Archer mumbles in a huff while kicking off her boots. "Ahhh~ that feels so much better." She groans and wiggles her toes.

"And he wonders why I have it out for him…" Hilda casually mentions to Archer.

"So he's always like that around girls?" Archer asks curiously. She seems to have quickly gotten used to the fact that Hilda can't be seen or touched.

"No, just Yayoi. Honestly, he needs to make up his damn mind about her otherwise that poor girl will end up waiting forever." Hilda sighs.

"They have quite a history together don't they?" Archer asks again.

"Those two have known each other practically their whole lives. I don't know what she sees in him to be so dedicated, she could do way better." Hilda replies.

"What about you? How exactly did ya end up in this situation?" Archer seems genuinely curiously. She lays back on the couch with her arms behind her head and her legs cross, doing her best to relax while learning a bit about the people she's going to be seeing a lot of.

"I don't think I know you well enough to go into that just yet…" Hilda's voice trails off.

"Fair enough." Archer shrugs her shoulders. "Was it painful?"

"Yeah… it hurt a lot. Not just physically either, I just graduated from high school and had my whole life ahead of me. I wanted to be a pilot you know… even got accepted into a school." Hilda sighs.

"It could still be worse, ya could still be dead. I think ya got lucky with the way things turned out for ya." Archer grins.

"I know, I know. Jin's said it all before. Somehow it doesn't make me feel any better. I still have to deal with him every day." Hilda forces a chuckle.

"Ya sound like ya hate him or somethin." Archer eyes the cup of tea Saber was drinking for a moment before sitting up, grabbing it and gulping down the rest of it as if it were perfectly natural to do so.

"Nah, I don't hate him. He's just a real pain in the ass… if I still had an ass. Speaking of which, I have to ask what's with that outfit?" Hilda asks.

"Oh this thing?" Archer cups her breasts and bounces them a little. They were already threatening to pop out her shirt. She almost looked naked, like some crazy cosplay outfit or something that shows way too much skin. Her legs were completely exposed all the way up to her inner thighs and half her butt was hanging out of her shorts. "These womanly charms come in handy sometimes ya know? People are much more likely to hand over their gold if I'm dressed like this."

"I guess I should have expected an answer like that…"

_Later…_

The front door opens and Yayoi walks in with Saber. Yayoi was carrying a duffel bag probably filled with clothes and whatever else she needs. "I see you've already made yourself at home." She says as she eyes Archer who is still sprawled out on the couch.

"Jin is upstairs, do you want me to go get him?" Hilda asks.

"No I'll go up myself, thanks Hilda." Yayoi smiles and makes her way upstairs.

I hear footsteps coming up the stairway as I'm still cleaning up my parent's room. I haven't touched it since they died… it still smells like them in here. After everything that happened today I almost forgot that it was still the anniversary of their death. Tonight Yayoi will be sleeping in here. I don't know how I feel about her sleeping in my parent's bed when I haven't even touched it in four years, but it's the only other room in the house. I think I have a futon somewhere I could lay out… maybe there's one in the closet.

"Is this where I'm going to be sleeping?" I hear a voice behind me and turn around to find Yayoi standing there with a bag.

I nod. "Yeah. I cleaned up a bit so I hope everything's okay…" I scratch my head nervously.

Yayoi steps through the doorway and looks around before dropping her bag on the king sized bed. "Isn't this your parent's room?"

"Yeah, I couldn't have you sleep on the floor or something since Archer seems to have stolen the couch." I feel like I should say something a bit smoother, but I can't seem to come up with anything. Having her in my house is nothing new, having her here at night however is… different. I feel really uneasy for some reason. My throat has a lump the size of an apple and my chest feels tight.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to sleep here?" Yayoi sounds like she's trying to get me to second think it but there really isn't any other option except to put her in my room… which obviously I can't do.

"If it wasn't then I would tell you." I cross my arms and shut the closet door and lean against it.

Yayoi smiles, though her eyes hold a bit of disappointment. Which of course I couldn't figure out what it was about. "That's certainly true."

"Go ahead and get settled in, I'm going to head downstairs and make sure our two guests aren't at each other's throats." I'm a bit worried about Saber and Archer, I don't want them tearing up the house trying to kill each other. I doubt Hilda would appreciate that either. Hilda is tied to the house after all, if it gets blown up then she's gone for good.

Yayoi thanks me as I leave her to her business. I make my way back downstairs to my living room to find Archer still sprawled out on the couch. Saber meanwhile had taken to sitting in an armed chair next to the couch with his sword leaning against the back wall. His eyes seem to be closed but he isn't sleeping, his breathing is deep which leads me to believe he's meditating.

"I'm not going to have a problem with you two am I?" I say loudly to the quiet room and break the silence.

Saber opens his eyes. "You and my Master appear to have no hostility towards one another. Your Servant does not appear to mind my presence either so I see no need to cause a disturbance as long as this situation remains the same." He replies calmly. It's a pretty straightforward answer. Well, I bet Yayoi told him not to do anything to me at least.

"I'm with him." Archer sits up and jerks her thumb towards Saber. "As long as he doesn't make a move on me, I'll let him work with us. That was what you wanted to do anyway right, Master?"

"I'm so glad the two of you are so understanding." I heave a sigh of relief. I'm really glad they didn't need me to give some speech as to why they shouldn't kill each other.

I leave the Servants behind and go back upstairs to check on Yayoi. I find her in the hallway carrying a few things towards the bathroom.

"Well it doesn't seem like those two will be a problem." I inform her. In her arms she's holding soaps and a towel.

"I told Saber we could trust you." She smiles faintly. "Um, it's getting late so I was going to take a bath…" Her voice trails off.

"Right, don't let me keep you then." I wave her off and watch her back as she goes into my bathroom and close the door behind her. I head to my room and throw myself on my bed, it wasn't until I hit my mattress I realized just how exhausted I feel.

"You want me to pull up the security footage in the bathroom?" Hilda asks playfully.

"Go to hell, Hilda." I growl at her for even putting the idea in my head.

"Suit yourself. You don't know what you're missing. She's got pretty cute breasts you know." Hilda teases me further.

I yawn. In the back of my mind I actually considered peeking in on her. Not with the cameras though, if I was going to do something that stupid I might as well just walk right in through the door on her. Still, even if I saw her naked I don't know if I'd be able to hold myself back. I am a guy after all.

"She probably wants you to." Hilda says quietly.

"Yeah… whatever." I reply groggily as I pull the sheets over my head and roll over on my side.


	8. Crisis

ACT VIII – Crisis

I feel a hand lightly touch my shoulder for a moment before it starts to shake me urgently. "Jin! You have to get up!" I hear Yayoi's voice call my name and I groggily open my eyes and sit up. The sheets brush lightly over my bare chest and the cool morning breeze hits my face and body.

"Something happen?" I yawn and slap my collar on. I push the button on the side that lets the material slide over my body, otherwise I'd be getting out of bed naked and I wouldn't want Yayoi to freak out.

"The news! You have to watch the news!" Yayoi urgently points to my door.

I slap myself on the cheeks a couple of times and jump out of bed. I rush down the stairs where Saber and Archer are sitting next to one another on the love seat.

"Mornin' partner." Archer waves with a smile and I make my way across the entryway into the living room and plop down into the chair. Saber merely nods to my presence.

The holoscreen on the wall is on and as I sit down I begin to listen to the report. "-least twelve confirmed fatalities last night in the lower level engineering block." The short haired reporter turned to an FDS officer next to her and tilted her microphone towards him. "Detective Hayakawa, have you managed to find out who committed this atrocity?"

Standing at attention with his hands behind his back the officer spoke clearly. "Not as of yet. But the citizens of Fuyuki can rest assured that we are doing everything we can to bring whoever is responsible to justice." The officer looked like he was at least in his mid 30's, had a slight stubble on his face and bags under his eyes. The poor guy probably had been up all night.

The reporter raised her microphone towards her once more. "We have heard reports that several bodies of FDS members among the casualties. Knowing this does this case take on a personal view for you?" She asked and moved the mic towards the officer again.

The officer's eyes narrowed into almost a glare. "Yes. It's absolutely personal." He replies in a low growling voice.

"Well there you have it. Please stay tuned for more on this breaking story." A ribbon rolled across the bottom of the screen calling this particular story "Midnight Massacre".

"It's terrible. They've issued a curfew and everything!" I turn my head towards Yayoi, she looks terrified. She's trembling and holding her arms close to her.

"A curfew means the law will be everywhere." Archer crosses her legs in the chair and itches her chin in thought. "I'll be fine naturally, but what about you Saber?" She opens one eye to look at Saber who is sitting on the other end of the couch next to Archer with his sword leaning against the outside of the armrest. Archer seems needlessly concerned about Saber. I'm not complaining of course, it would be easier for me if they made nice so I just calked it up under a concern for her new partner.

"No problem." Saber replied without much emotion.

"A tribute to the conversation as always." I mumble. In the short time he's spent here he hasn't said much. He might just be a quiet type, but it makes me nervous when all I've really seen him do is watch everything that goes on with an almost inhuman vigilance.

Yayoi turns off the holo screen and then returns to my side and sits on the armrest. "You don't think the murders and the Grail war are related do you?"

"Considering something on this scale hasn't happened for a very long time I would have to say that it's a fair guess." Not even in my lifetime has there been anything on the news that's been called a massacre, and as far as I know never on Fuyuki.

Yayoi then twitched and jumped up off of the armrest of the chair. "Oh no! I was so surprised at the news I forgot to make breakfast." After that she hurries off to the kitchen with Saber watching her back.

I scratch my head. Come to think of it, I completely forgot what day it was today. "Hilda, is today a school day?"

"Yes it is." As usual her voice comes out of nowhere to answer me.

"Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" I heave a sigh.

"And deprive Yayoi of the pleasure of doing it herself? I would never." I could practically hear Hilda's lips curling into a grin even though I can't see them.

"Oh so we're gonna go ta school?" Archer giggles excitedly.

I glance over at Archer who is fidgeting on the couch and look her over from head to toe. "In spirit form, obviously."

Archer purses her lips. "But that's so bo~ring!" She pouts. She starts to shift back and forth, her long legs lifting up off the air. She was fussing around so much that Saber glared sideways at her and shifted further away from her.

"No way in hell you're going anywhere in public wearing that." I point towards her. She was showing enough skin to be practically half naked. Every time she moves her voluptuous breasts bounce and always seems like they're mashed together and halfway covered up.

"Come on now sugar, ain't there sumthin ya can do for me? I just hate goin into spirit form all tha time." Archer pleads, her eyes wide like a puppy dog's.

I heave a sigh and rub my temples. "You could wear my mom's suit for now." I would have much rather kept her existence a secret but if she wants to come along this bad I guess it wouldn't be a big deal. At least it would give her a chance to learn a bit more about this place. Being in space must be pretty new for her after all considering they didn't even have cars when she was alive.

With an excited giggle Archer throws her hands up into the air and hugs me, purposefully pressing her chest against me. The soft feeling makes my mind blur for a brief moment before I remember that Yayoi is still in the kitchen and Saber is on the couch watching us curiously.

"Get off me." I grab her shoulders and push her away. I get up off the couch and motion for her to follow me. "Come on."

Archer follows me upstairs and into the hallway. The door to my parent's room slides upward and she follows me inside. "Don't touch anything."

"So ya don't care if Yayoi touches it but I can't?" Archer stops at the doorway and leans against the side.

I can hardly tell that Yayoi has been in here. Nothing looks to be disturbed and the bed is made perfectly as if my parents had made it themselves. The only difference is I can spot a little bit of the bag she carried her things in under the bed.

I cross the room and open the closet where some of my mother's clothes still are hung. I completely ignore Archer's question and reach towards the shelf near the top of the closet and grab the metal ring sitting on it. I brush the lair of dust off of it and toss it to Archer who easily snatches it out of the air.

"This thing is a suit?" Archer raises an eyebrow and turns it over in her hand.

I walk back across the room and passed Archer. "You can change in here. Hilda walk her through it will you?"

"Sure thing. I'll record it for your viewing pleasure later." Hilda responds with a joke.

"Hm? Why can't you show me?" Archer spins around and looks at me curiously.

"Because you have to be naked when you put it on." I step through the door and it slides shut behind me.

"I don't think she would have minded." Hilda says after the door closes.

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about." I reply and head downstairs where I find Yayoi and Saber munching pieces of toast.

"I didn't have a lot of time so I just made toast. Sorry Jin." Yayoi apologizes as she shoves a book into her school bag.

"Don't worry about it." I wave off her worries and grab a piece of toast. I look over at Saber who is just finishing his. I haven't really said much to him, I wonder what he thinks about going to school.

"Do you want to borrow one of my spare suits Saber? You won't have to follow Yayoi around in spirit form all day that way." I ask, not really expecting much of an answer.

Saber shifted in his seat when I addressed him as if he was surprised that I did. It was a good thing the suits were one size fits all so even a guy as big as him could be lent one. He looked up at me, his chain mail making an eerie noise.

"I shall be fine." His answer was about what I expected.

"She's on her way down Jin. You wouldn't believe what a pain in the ass it was explaining to her what a button is." Hilda broke the awkward silence with a rather amusing piece of information.

A moment later, Archer came down the stairs wearing my mom's yellow sun dress over the body suit I gave her. Strangely enough the one mom was wearing in my dream the other night. At her hips she still wears her gun holsters and on her head she still had her hat.

"Well how do I look?" Archer twirls around in the middle of the living room.

"You look wonderful." Yayoi claps her hands together and nods in approval.

She does wear the dress well, although I will admit its pretty strange seeing anyone other than my mom wearing it. Archer better appreciate this. Though she is quite a feast for the eyes.

"Well Jin's staring at you, so that's usually a good sign." Hilda says with a chuckle.

Archer giggled.

"We'd better get going or we're going to be late. We're not going to fly today are we Jin?" Yayoi asks me which snaps me out of my daze.

"I think I'm going to save that for emergencies from now on to keep a low profile. I think we'd better just take a bus." I get my things together in a manner of seconds and we all prepare to leave.

"Saber, would you mind going to spirit form please?" Yayoi asks politely as she slips on her shoes.

Saber nods and his outline begins to shimmer before he eventually starts to gradually fade away. He fades from sight, now no longer visible to anyone but other Servants.

"Keep an eye on Jin for me. I can't torture him if he goes and dies on me." Hilda sees us off and we step outside into the morning air.

Outside is normal. It's the same temperature and humidity, the same amount of clouds in the fake sky overhead. It's the same every day, well minus the two historical figures walking with us. That part is pretty new. Before I realize it I'm looking over at Archer who notices and strikes a sexy pose by popping out her hit and tipping her hat.

"See somethin' ya like partner?" She winks seductively and her lips curl into a toothy grin.

"I see a dead outlaw who's out of her element." I reply sarcastically.

"Not true, anyplace where money is bein made is my element." She clucked her tongue and waved her index finger around to illustrate her point.

I raise my eyebrow; Archer now has this look about her that says she's plotting something. "What are you thinking?"

Archer chuckles and waves me off with her hand. "Don't ya worry about that none."

"Now I really am worried." I sigh. Archer seems to have drifted off deep in thought and is looking around the streets at everything as if she's taking in every detail. The part that really worries me is the fact that she's wearing a huge creepy smile while she's doing it.

()()()

Luckily we didn't run into anyone I know on the way to school. Walking with Archer might raise some suspicions but luckily we reach the gate without much incident.

"See you in class Yayoi, I have to take Archer to the office and see if we can get her in class." I say to her once we enter the gates. If this doesn't work I can always send her back home to keep Hilda occupied. I have a feeling she has a tendency to get bored.

"Alright. See you later, Jin." Yayoi smiles and then heads up the stairs towards our classroom.

"Hmm so this is yer school?" Archer looks around as I take her up the stairs and in the opposite direction my class is in. The teacher's lounge is also along this way, but students aren't really allowed in there unless asked by a teacher. It's where a lot of the teachers eat lunch.

The school itself has three floors, the entrance with the shoe lockers and the central stairway that leads up to each floor. From the central stairway the stairway splits off into two directions, each floor representing the year it has on it. Floor 1 is for first years and so on. There are dirt paths leading behind the school where the sports facilities are located. Our school has a pool, track and field, and a judo club, we also have volleyball, but that's held in the gym on the first floor.

"Yeah, from what we've been told schools haven't really changed much over the years. Though the school is thinking about adding Gravity Ball to the sports program." I reply absentmindedly as we make our way down the hallway.

Archer's eyebrows twitch. "Gravity Ball?" She asks curiously.

Basically Gravity Ball is like soccer except it's played in a special arena where the gravity can be switched on or off. Teams consist of nine players and the goalposts are rings about ten feet in diameter and are on posts fifteen feet in the air. The matches themselves are played in huge square cubes about the size of a five story office building. The arenas are see-through and the spectator seats are positioned around the large cube on the outside. The gravity is adjusted at certain time intervals throughout the match which consists of nine rounds. Rounds end when a goal is scored or the time limit is up. In the last 100 years or so it's become the major competitive sport of pretty much every nation and large competitions are held every year.

"That's basically it." I finish explaining.

"Sounds like fun. Do ya play?" Archer asks curiously.

I puff out my chest proudly. "Of course I do, Kenji from class and I have a team. We don't get to play as much with school though." I sigh and scratch my head. "With the War going on I won't be playing anytime soon either. There are always the broadcasted matches I can watch I guess." I shrug. The curfew now in affect with effect my playing time too. However with the way things have been going I'll get just as much of a workout with the War as I would playing ball anyway.

We reach the faculty office and the door slides open at my approach. "Aoyagi Jin and Guest have arrived." The female AI's voice chimes in.

"Come on in Mr. Aoyagi." The principal of the school motioned the two of us in. He's an older man, a bit heavyset with grey hair and a bushy mustache resembling a caterpillar on his upper lip.

"Excuse us Mr. Asagami." I step inside his office and motion for Archer to follow me.

"Howdy partner. You in charge here?" Archer asks rather energetically.

Asagami cracked a smile. "Sort of. What can I do for you young lady?"

"She wants to transfer into Class 2-3 with me. She's a distant relative of mine from America." She's not really a relative obviously but I have to tell him something. A foreign transfer student seemed cliché enough he'd probably believe it.

"America huh?" Asagami sits further back in his char and looks at both me and Archer. "Your name, Miss?" He asks politely.

"Thought ya'd never ask." Archer does a little twirl and tips her hat. "Name's Bonnie McCarty. It's a pleasure to meet ya Mr. Asagami." Archer sticks out her hand.

Asagami smiles and shakes her hand. "The pleasure is all mine Miss McCarty. Normally I wouldn't do this, but since you're so polite I'll make an exception this once." He turns to me. "Go to class Mr. Aoyagi, I'll stay here with Ms. McCarty and help her fill out the necessary paperwork. If all goes well we should have her transferred by the end of first period."

I stand up. "Thanks a lot Mr. Asagami." I turn my head towards Archer. "Stay out of trouble." She sticks her tongue out at me in reply and I leave.

Shutting the door behind me I get the feeling that I should probably be hurrying to class. I set off at a fast walk. I head up the stairs and about halfway up I run into a person who should also be in class.

He's pretty tall, maybe about 5'11. His black hair is slicked back leaving only a strand hanging down in the middle of his forehead. He wears thin glasses that accentuate his brown eyes. He's the most popular guy in school at the moment, perfect grades, near perfect athletics and from what I hear still single despite being very popular with all the girls.

"Running late, Aoyagi?" He asks with a smirk. It's not a surprise that he knows my name, or that I know his. That's because we're both Magi.

"I had some business to take care of with Mr. Asagami. What's your excuse Tohsaka?" I jab back at him. Tohsaka. Nearly every magus in Japan knows that name. They're an old family believed to have been the guardians of the original Fuyuki City back on Earth. Standing in front of me is their current heir, Tohsaka, Kenichi. As exceptional a Magus as he is a student, I definitely would like to avoid fighting him if I could. Thankfully at the moment we're just simple high school students.

"Student Council business, unfortunately it has me running a little late." He heaves a sigh as if he has a lot on his shoulders, which he probably does.

I chuckle. "Sounds like you have it tough. I'll leave you to it, Tohsaka." I continue past him up the stairs but am stopped by a hand on my shoulder. I quickly pivot around to face him.

"I saw you walk in. That's some transfer student I take it?" He asks in a deep voice. I can feel his eyes piercing my face, looking for some kind of reaction. I stare right back at him through his glasses. Did he realize what she was? If he did then that means he's…

"She's a distant relative visiting from Neo America for awhile, she wanted to see what it was like in another country." Trying my hardest not to show any emotions, I can feel the tension between us like static electricity. My hair stood up on end and it feels like my whole body is shaking even though it isn't.

Tohsaka narrows his eyes. "She doesn't look anything like you." He replies simply, still staring. His stare is like he's trying to figure me out, waiting for me to make some mistake. One twitch is all it would take and the two of us could end up fighting right here. My vision has completely blocked out the rest of the world, all I can see in front of me is Tohsaka and his glaring gaze. I'm sure it must be the same for him.

"That's why I said she's a distant relative." I reply plainly.

Both of us go silent after that. He's not just asking out of curiosity. He knows. He knows what Archer is, and he knows why she's with me. The fact that I've been found out so quickly infuriates me. Even though I know that it's my fault for letting Archer come to school. What the hell was I thinking? The seconds between us pass by what seems like hours at a time, the air is thick with tension. My mind slowly shifts towards the command spells on my shoulder, if a fight does break out then I'll have to call Archer that way.

I don't know how long we were like that, but after what felt like an eternity the bell rang signaling the start of first period. Tohsaka slowly removes his hand from my shoulder, which I just realize has been there the entire time.

"I'd better get to class." He says casually, his face softening back from the glare he'd just been giving me.

"Yeah me too. See you around, Tohsaka." I turn around and continue up the stairs to class. The release of tension made me want to take a huge breath of fresh air.

"For your sake Aoyagi, I hope not." He replies plainly as the two of us go our separate ways.


	9. The Lancer

ACT IX – The Lancer

Now that the unfortunate business with Tohsaka is over, I hurry to class. I slide open the door and get the typical lecture from Fujimura-sensei which I mostly ignore. I do make sure to apologize though, I'm not a complete idiot.

I had a hard time focusing in class. With everything that had happened today the only notes I end up taking are drawings of myself as an action movie hero. Tohsaka had me more nervous than I already was with the war going on. The news this morning has me riled up too, something about it didn't sit right with me, other than the whole mass murder thing.

It's lunch time before I know it. I must have spaced out through the whole thing, looks like I got away free though since Fujimura-sensei didn't say anything.

"Yo dude, let's get lunch." Kenji taps me on the shoulder.

"Sounds good, I could use some food." I ease my way up from my desk, my legs had gotten stiff sometime during class and it felt good to stretch them out.

"Man you look like crap." Kenji points out mercilessly. "Pull a late nighter or somethin?"

I wave him off. "Nah, don't worry about it."

"Alright then, let's get outta here and join the fight then." Kenji urgently jerks his thumb towards the door.

I nod and Kenji and I rush out of the classroom. My stomach growls and I realize how hungry I am. I didn't get a big breakfast so it's only natural. The amount of students in the hallway probably meant that we were behind. We'd never make it to the cafeteria before them. I know I said I wouldn't use it, but this is an emergency and I'm hungry. I guess that makes me a hypocrite.

"Kenji, this way I have a shortcut!" I open one of the windows in the hallway.

"No way dude, I'm not going out there!" Kenji's eyeballs practically fly out of his head after I start to swing my leg out the window. We're on the 2nd floor, so normally the drop would be enough to hurt.

I sigh and lean forward, grabbing Kenji by the hand. "No homo bro, just trust me on this one." I pull him in and hold tight as I drop out, my other hand going into my pocket.

"Shiiiiiit!" Kenji yelps as we fall through the air.

About halfway down my thumb finds the button and I quickly press it. Between our rate of fall and my reaction time the belt buckle kicks in a millisecond before we hit the ground and we land harmlessly. It would look weird to anyone else who saw it, but it wouldn't look like we just floated all the way down anyway. Any Magus would know something was up though, so I have to hope Tohsaka didn't see it.

When our feet touch the ground Kenji rips his hand out of mine and nearly drops on all fours from the shock. "Don't… ever… do that… again!" He shouts while out of breath.

I slap his back to get him going. "I told you to trust me dude. Come on." I pull him up.

We make it to the cafeteria which is only about half full. People are still filing in even as Kenji and I enter the battle royale in front of the bread stand so we still couldn't waste time standing around.

We work our way in and order what we want. I get melon bread and Kenji gets curry bread and melon bread. We find a seat and dig in together.

"So what's up man? That fall should have broken your legs. You have augmentation you didn't tell me about?" Kenji asks through a mouthful of bread.

I lean forward and motion Kenji to do the same. "No fake limbs, but I have this disruptor I invented." I whisper which is barely audible over the crowd of the cafeteria.

"Invented? I knew you had a hobby for messing with stuff but I didn't know you ever made anything that worked." Kenji's eyes went wide. "What's this thing do?" He asks curiously.

I explain to him how it works, with details on how long it took me to get it right, how many failures involved. Of course I left out the part of it using magic. Just the tech bits would be enough.

"Dude, does the government know you have that?" Kenji gasps.

"If they did do you think I would still have it with me?" I answer back.

"Good point. Seriously though dude, you could get into serious trouble for having that." Kenji looks worried.

I take a bite out of my lunch. "I'm not exactly flashing it wherever I go."

Kenji heaves a sigh. "Next time at least tell me you have something to make a drop safe so I don't think I'm gonna die."

"I'll keep that in mind." I grin devilishly and Kenji cowers, acting like he's afraid.

"Jin~!" I hear a voice come from across cafeteria and right away I knew who it was. I lift up my head and see Archer jogging through the crowd towards where Kenji and I are sitting.

"I'll be joinin' yer class after lunch. Asagami told me to get out and eat somethin' since it was lunch time." She takes out a piece of bread and struggles with the plastic wrap.

"Who's the babe?" Kenji leans forward and whispers.

"I'll have ya know I have very good ears." Archer narrowed her eyes at Kenji.

"She's a new transfer student, I'm just looking out for her." I reply and chug down the coffee I bought with my lunch.

"I think ya got that backwards Jin. I'm the one looking out for you." Archer says with a toothy grin. The plastic wrap she was still struggling with opening was making all kinds of noise. I grab it from her hands and tear it open for her, the noise was starting to annoy me. Archer tips her hat in thanks and takes a huge unladylike bite out of the bread.

"Jin?" Kenji nearly falls out of his chair in a combination of surprise and jealousy. "You two are on a first name basis already?"

"Don't get any funny ideas, that's just the way she is." I heave a sigh. Out of the corner of my eye I watch Archer gulping down her food. "In that case, what's your name?" Kenji turns to Archer.

Archer tips the brim of her hat after swallowing what was in her mouth. So much so that I can see the lump going down her throat. "McCarty's the name. Bonnie McCarty."

Kenji eyes her up and down with a grin. "Neo American, McCarty-chan?"

"I don't know bout no Neo but yer darn tootin' I'm an American." Archer replied.

"Where'd you find her Jin? She's straight out of those ancient Western movies." Kenji says with a chuckle, turning back towards me.

I scratch the back of my head. "She kinda found me. Coincidence really."

"Lunchtime has now ended. Please prepare to return to your classes. I repeat, lunchtime has now ended. Please prepare to return to your classes." The female AI announced signaling the end of lunchtime.

"We'd better get going." I shovel down the rest of my bread seeing as I didn't get a chance with Archer's interruption.

"You know I just realized we didn't see Sakuraba at lunch. She usually joins us." Kenji mentions casually as we make our way out of the lunchroom.

"Yayoi probably ate on the roof." I reply. She does like to eat on the roof, she likes the sky even though it's not the real one.

()()()

Jin didn't come see me for lunch. I guess that Kenji talked him into eating down at the cafeteria. I thought about going down there with them, but I'm enjoying the air. I can see Jin all I want at his house. In any case it will give me some time to think.

"Saber? Are you there?" I call out to the empty air.

"Always, Master." The air in front of me shimmers like ripples in a pond and soon the huge man is standing in front of me. When I first saw him he scared me, towering over me carrying that sword. After that I learned who he was and learned a little about him from the short conversations we had. He's not the easiest person to talk to due to the fact he doesn't say much, but I can say for certain that I couldn't ask for a better Servant.

"I don't think I ever asked you, but why do you want the Grail?" I ask curiously while taking out my lunchbox and opening it.

"Hmm." Saber uttered a gruff noise and crossed his arms as if deep in thought. "I do not." He utters after a few moments.

My eyes go wide in surprise, of all the answers, he says the one I least expect. "You don't want it at all? Why? You can have anything if you win it. Why did you become a heroic spirit if you don't have a wish?"

"The only thing I desire is one last good fight. The Grail can not give me that." He replied, his hand running across the hilt of his sword. "I once killed a dragon with this blade. It was the greatest fight I have ever known. I wish to be a part of such a battle again." Saber continued.

I scratch my cheek. "You want to battle the greatest heroes so you became a heroic spirit?"

Saber nods. "Yes. I am a warrior, I desire nothing but battle. Should our enemies be defeated the Grail shall belong to you. I desire not this cup of wishes." Saber opened his mouth to say something more but he quickly grabbed his sword and turned towards the door. "An enemy approaches my Lady."

"Saber, spirit form." I whisper to him.

"But-"

"Just do it." No sooner did Saber nod and vanish the door opened with a metallic creaking. A figure with slick black hair stepped through it and closed it behind him. He turned around and saw me sitting on the bench near the back fence and smiled.

"Ah, another person craving a little fresh air. Sakuraba-san isn't it?" Tohsaka asks as he steps towards me.

"Y-yes." I stutter. I felt like the air around me was being compressed as he looked at me. The air around him was bleeding magical energy, and there was another formless mass of mana standing next to him. I can't make it out but I have a guess as to what it is.

"Do you mind if I join you?" Tohsaka asks politely.

"I was just about to leave actually." I stand up, my heartbeat increasing.

Tohsaka waves a hand behind him and the edges of the door burn red, sealing itself shut. The Tohsaka were well known jewel and fire mages. Kenichi was especially adept at using his fire element. I have no doubt he melted the hinges on the door so they wouldn't open.

"I insist. I could use the company for a little while." He says ominously.

"…" I can't say anything, any words I try to speak get stuck in my throat.

"Aoyagi is an idiot. With a friend like you I thought that he would develop a brain eventually." Tohsaka heaves a sigh. "Bringing his Servant to school in physical form? He's practically begging to be attacked." He shakes his head.

"Yours is here too." I glare at the mass next to Tohsaka.

He puts his hands behind his back and starts to pace back and forth in front of the door. "Ah yes, I'd forgotten about your rather unique pair of Mystic Eyes. I can't hide anything magical from you can I?"

"You know about them?" I ask in surprise.

"You should not be surprised Sakuraba-san. There's not much going on in Fuyuki that I don't know about. Granted there's no possible way I can know everything." He wags his finger at me. "I've had an interest in your eyes for awhile. They're quite rare."

"What are you going to do?"

"Unfortunately I'm going to have to kill you. If anything it'll get under Aoyagi's skin." Tohsaka snaps his fingers. "Lancer."

Two shimmers appear at once, the first in front of me was Saber with his large sword drawn, its golden plated guard glinted in the artificial sunlight.

Out of the next shimmer appears an equally large a man as Saber wearing heavy green armor of Chinese make. His hair was long and black, tied into a ponytail behind his head. His beard was just as long and nearly went below his belt. In his right hand he held a long spear with a curved blade. If I remember my history correctly it was called a guan dao. The heavy green plates of his armor made scratching noises as the grinded against one another as he stepped forward, the ground practically shaking under his feet. His face was fierce and he immediately turned his attention to Saber.

"Do you really want to do this here?" I ask Tohsaka who had now retreated behind Lancer once Saber appeared.

With a word which seem to echo on the air a small flicker of flame burned to life within each of Tohsaka's hands. "Here is a good a place as any. I have wards up to insure no one will disturb us, and I believe this should be quick. You are not a combat mage, this I know."

The two Servants square off on the roof, not moving until the fight begins. I say nothing to Tohsaka. There's nothing to say. He's going to try and kill me up here. I know a few defensive spells, but I know I can't fend Tohsaka off for long. Saber can't protect me forever either. Lancer looks tough and there's no way to know what kind of Noble Phantasm he has.

"No hard feelings then." Tohsaka reels back his arm and the fire within his palm grows brighter. He flings a ball of fire at me, signaling the start of the fight.

Saber immediately steps in front of the fireball Tohsaka threw and swings at it with his sword. If Tohsaka was fire then Saber was lightning, his blow was precise and quick, cleaving the ball of fire in two and destroying it.

Lancer took the opportunity to charge through the smoke with his spear and thrust at Saber's chest. The strikes were so fast that I couldn't see them, one by one he stabbed and each time Saber was able to parry, but only just. Their speed was about even, but Lancer had the better range with his long weapon. Saber would have to get creative if he wanted to get close enough to land a blow.

As Saber and Lancer were fighting Tohsaka made his way around them, being sure to keep his distance from the whirlwind of blades in the middle of the roof. I see him reach into his pocket and grab a gem, he tosses it at me and I'm forced to dodge to the side where it collides with the fence I was just standing in front of and explode. It left a large hole in the fence.

That was Tohsaka's mistake. I don't know if he did that on purpose but the expression on his face soured.

"Saber!" I called to him and pointed towards the hole in the gate. I couldn't make the jump from the roof on my own seeing as it was three stories up, but Saber could.

A spark appeared on Tohsaka's fingertips and he began to draw in the air. The spark leaving a trail.

"_Algiz, Nauthiz, Ansuz, Inguz."_ Tohsaka chanted as he drew each of the unfamiliar symbols in the air. The ground beneath them glowed with an eerie light and a boundary formed from the borders of the rooftop.

"We cannot leave my Lady! His spell prevents it!" Saber shouts as he fends off another barrage of Lancer's blows, this time the blade caught Saber's shoulder, cutting off a large amount of flesh.

"That's certainly not good." I don't know what kind of barrier Tohsaka put up but I know I can't run.

"You should just stay still. I'm trying to make this painless. Do you know how hard that is as a fire mage?" Tohsaka says as he thrusts his hands forward and jets of fire stream forth from them.

"Ah!" I jump backwards as the flames and heat lick at my body. I have a few feathers in my pocket that I imbue with magic and throw at Tohsaka. It's the only offensive spell I know and it's terribly old and utterly useless normally. It turns the feathers into small knives that stab into the enemy but unfortunately most of them are burnt up in Tohsaka's fire.

"GAH!" Tohsaka yelps and drops to his knees clutching at his face. Blood dripped over his hands and through his fingers. "I was trying to be nice you bitch!" Tohsaka wails and writhes on the ground. I had gotten lucky, my spell must have somehow caught his eyes. "Lancer, kill them!"

Lancer nodded and steps back from Saber and a massive amount of magical energy envelops him like a cloak.

"Saber, he's going to use his Noble Phantasm!" I warn him.

"Then I shall answer him with mine!" Saber's sword exploded with golden light. Saber dropped his stance, his sword positioned behind him as it erupted with a whirlwind.

Lancer's halberd like weapon began to glow green to oppose Saber's gold. A torrent of wind rose up from the floor, nearly knocking me to my feet.

Lancer raised his weapon, a green Chinese dragon rose out of it and roared. "_Qīng lóng yǎn yuè dāo! Green Dragon Crescent Blade!"_

"_BALMUNG!"_ Saber roared and leapt into the air with a kick off the ground.

Lancer pointed his spear upwards and seemed to be rocketed upward by a flash of green light. He gripped the spear with both hands and brought it backwards, preparing to swing it with the force of his momentum.

I didn't see what happened next. My vision was blinded by a crack that sounded like thunder and an explosion of gold and emerald light bright enough to block out the sky. Saber's Noble Phantasm took nearly all of my mana, my legs felt weak and my vision was blurry. The ground wheeled overhead as I fell backwards and my back hit the pavement. Darkness takes my vision and I fall unconscious. I don't know what happened to Saber, Lancer, or Tohsaka. I don't know anything as I fall.


	10. What I Need to Protect

ACT X – What I Need to Protect

My pencil falls out my hand and clatters loudly on my desk. It probably really wasn't that loud, but with the silence as the class was studying it probably sounded like a cannon going off. On second thought, after my encounter with what I only can assume as Rider's pirate ship, I don't want to reference cannons for a long time. The point is, something seems wrong, very wrong.

I glance over at Archer, who's gaze instantly turns to meet mine.

"Did ya feel that too?" She asks in a whisper.

I nod. I only barely felt it, but it must have been easy for Archer. Hearing her say it confirms my suspicions on what it was. A large burst of magical energy.

I leap up from my seat and bolt for the classroom door with Archer just behind me.

"Aoyagi, where are you going?" I hear Fujimura-sensei call my name.

I don't have time to answer him. I'm worried about Yayoi. I haven't seen her since lunch and that large burst of magical energy just now didn't help. Something in my chest tightened and told me I needed to hurry, that she was in danger. I put all my strength in my legs once I reached the stairway to the roof of the school. My legs start to burn as I reach the door and Archer stopped me by grabbing my shoulder.

"Ladies first." She says with a wink and grabs one of the pistols on her hip. "There's a Servant on the other side." She whispers and kicks the door open.

In a flash she enters the doorway, pointing a gun in each hand towards the empty space. I stay behind her in silence as she checks the area.

"Yayoi and Saber are here. You had better see this, Jin." Archer says and makes a space. I run in the door and see a figure lying near the center, lifeless and unmoving. My heart stops.

"YAYOI!" I rush across the metallic surface of the ceiling, my brain feels like it has screeched to a halt. Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, please don't be dead, PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD!

My brain shut out the rest of the world. My peripheral vision seems to disappear and the time it takes me to run across the roof to Yayoi's lifeless body feels like hours. By the time I reach her and kneel by her side she hasn't moved and inch, I can tell she's not breathing just by looking at her.

Her body was covered in burns and bits of ash. Parts of her clothing was also burnt away. I gently lift her body, it's heavy. It's heavy because she can't lift her muscles, can't open her eyes, can't smile. Ever again. I put my finger under her nose, to be sure. I had to be sure. No. No air was flowing into her lungs. I put my hand on her chest, her heart had stopped.

I dig into my pocket and find my phone to call an ambulance. Maybe there was still a chance to revive her, maybe they could do something. I ignore the tears streaming down my cheeks, the knot in my throat preventing me from speaking and the tear in my heart.

"Why isn't Saber here!? He was supposed to protect her!" I yell at Archer.

"H-He is here darlin'… he was forced by Yayoi into Spirit Form, he took a beatin' from the bad guys. He's only here till the rest of his mana is drained away…" She replies, nearly choking up herself.

In my anger my magic circuits opened and I accidentally fried my phone. It short circuited in a puff of smoke. My body was going haywire with the thought of losing Yayoi forever. However in the dark, my smoking phone held a light. An electric one.

"I can save her!" I gasp in a sudden realization. The muscles in the human body react violently to electric shot, the human body runs on electricity after all. The heart is no exception.

"Ya can?" Archer gasped.

I ignored Archer. I don't know how long Yayoi has been dead for, but I can only hope that it hasn't been too long. Only I can do this, my magic will make it so.

I place Yayoi's body carefully on the ground and untie the ribbon on her blouse. If I wasn't so concerned about her life, I'm sure my face would be beet red.

"Are ya sure now is the time for that, Jin?" Archer says from behind me.

"If she wakes up from this, I'll let Yayoi punch me good." I say as I fumble with the buttons on her blouse. I haven't ever done this before, and I wish that the circumstances were a lot different but I'll have a better chance if I have contact with her skin. I close my eyes, I don't want to look at her like this but my hands slip into her shirt and I feel her still warm skin on my fingertips. I don't mess with her bra at all, that would take way too much time for me to figure out.

I find where her heart would be, flip the switch on my magic circuits and start to pray. I grit my teeth and channel my magical electricity into Yayoi's body.

Her body jumps under my hands and then falls back to the rooftop.

"Come back!" I yell as I shock her body again. It follows the same motion but Yayoi remains lifeless.

"I never even told you how I really felt!"

No effect again. I increase the voltage and pound on Yayoi's chest to jog it further.

"I'm not going to let you leave me!" I shock her once more with everything I've got. Her body twitches in response but it's barely noticeable.

I feel a pair of arms wrap tightly around my chest and squeeze me.

"It's okay, ya tried, Jin." Archer tries to comfort me. I can't see it, but I could tell she was crying too.

"No… I'm sure I got her heart…" I sob, it was like losing more of my family over and over. I stare at Yayoi's body, unable to tear my eyes away. I took in everything I could about her, so I wouldn't forget.

_Badump._

"I'm going to find out who did this to you…" I manage to choke out as the tears stream down my cheek.

_Badump. Badump._

"Come on, we gotta get outta here." Archer says and tries to help me on my feet.

_Badump. Badump. Badump. Badump._

Before we turn to leave, out of the corner of my eye I see Yayoi's fingers twitch.

"Wait! Archer! She's alive!" I throw off Archer's arms and run back to Yayoi's side. I put my ear to her chest. I don't think I've ever smiled so much.

"She has a heartbeat!" I yell at Archer.

"She still needs a doctor." Archer replies as I pick up Yayoi's body, the burn marks were still bad. Unfortunately I can't do much about that. I restarted her heart, now I have to get her to the hospital.

Archer opens the door into the school for me and I rush Yayoi inside. My phone is fried, so I'll have to let the teachers call the proper help, as much as I would rather not. I rushed Yayoi into her classroom, needless to say it got the job done. Several kids freaked out but the teacher called an ambulance.

The school was in a buzz now, a student had been in some kind of mysterious accident. It took around fifteen minutes for the ambulance to arrive. During those minutes, I refused to let anyone take Yayoi from my arms. The paramedics arrived and loaded her into the back of an ambulance. School was called off for the day so I left for the hospital as well. I would have even if they didn't call off classes.

When I got to the hospital I was told that Yayoi was rushed to the emergency room so Archer and I had to wait for a couple hours. They were excruciatingly long, neither Archer nor I talked much.

"Aoyagi-san?" A nurse comes and calls my name. Which is strange because I didn't give it to them.

Archer and I stand up. "Yes? How is she?" I ask frantically.

The nurse smiles. "Sakuraba-san is going to be just fine, I'll take you to her."

I can feel my face light up brighter than summer fireworks. I follow the nurse down the hallway and into a room. It's a typical small room, single bed, white walls and white floors. Yayoi is in a bed with an IV hooked into her, she's awake.

"Jin." She says with a smile.

I wanted to rush over to her side, hug her tight. However there were these little things preventing that called third degree burns. It's very hard to hold my emotions back. "I'm so glad you're okay." I take a seat in the chair next to her bed.

"In all honesty Jin, I don't know how I survived…" Yayoi bit her lip.

"You didn't. You were dead when I found you." I admitted.

"Then how?"

"I managed to restart your heart. I didn't want to lose you. Not after my family, I'm not losing you too." I gently place one of my hands over Yayoi's.

"I don't want to leave you either." She replied.

"You fought a Servant, didn't you?" I ask.

Yayoi nods. "I think it was Lancer. He did use a big spear."

"What about Lancer's Master?"

"Tohsaka Kenichi." Yayoi replied again.

I heave a sigh. "Of all the Magi in the world it had to be him…"

"Saber is still hurt badly, even with me healing him it will take awhile. I can't spare much mana right now. You're better at this than I am, what should I do?" Yayoi asked.

She was innocent, she had no business in a battle like this in the first place. Knowing Tohsaka, it was probably him that challenged her. In any case, with the condition that Yayoi is in there's only one thing I need to do in a situation like this.

"You should focus on your recovery. I am going to protect you until Saber can get back on his feet as well." I say and look over my shoulder at Archer.

"Don't you fret none Yayoi. I'll make sure Jin doesn't go and get himself killed." Archer says with a wink.

Yayoi chuckles but then cut it short abruptly. "Haha- oh ouch, please don't make me laugh."

"I'm glad you're feeling better. Stay here and get some rest. I'm going to find Tohsaka, and I'm going to kick his ass. Tonight." I get up and turn to Archer. "Let's go."

Archer nods and heads for the door, before we leave I turn around to Yayoi. "I'll be back. This won't take long, I promise." Then I turn and leave, closing the door behind me.

"It seems ya can man up when the situation calls for it." Archer says with a devilish grin.

"Tohsaka's made this war personal. I shocked the life back into Yayoi, I'm going to shock it out of Tohsaka." I growl and clench my fists as Archer and I make our way towards the front door of the hospital. School turned out to be a half day, but it seems my own day has just begun.


	11. Kenichi

ACT XI – Kenichi

The school bell chimes, the sound rings through my ears and I feel the weight of the day lift off of my shoulders. I'm glad the day is over, now I have the rest of the day and tomorrow to focus on something a little bit more important. Playing the honor student was fun for awhile, but I don't really like all the attention that it brings with it, especially with two enemies in my own school. Well, I should say one and a half, Sakuraba Yayoi doesn't exactly count as an enemy, more like something that's just in my way.

"See you on Monday!" One of the girls calls to me and waves before going to join her friends. I can hear them giggling outside the door from here.

"Have you added her to the list yet?" One of the boys in my class grins at me as he leans against my desk. His name is Kamiyama and he's on the track team. If I have the best grades in my class, then Kamiyama has the second best. It really irks him too, but I mostly just ignore him. He's also quite popular. He's sort of a friend, but he's not a Magus so I can't exactly let him get too close, but I've always gotten the feeling he was still jealous.

"How can I turn her down if she hasn't confessed yet?" I answer back without looking up at him as I put my books in my bag.

Kamiyama scratches his chin. "Hm, good point." He shrugs.

"What does it matter to you anyway?" I stand up and sling my bag over my shoulder.

"Kazuko was getting too clingy so I had to dump her. The girls you turn down seem to come to me sometimes so I was waiting on a rebound." He admits casually.

"You realize how sad that is right?" I raise my eyebrow at him as I start to walk towards the door.

"Sad for who? The rebound guy, or the girls who date the second best guys to get you to notice them?" Kamiyama grins.

Even I had to chuckle at that. "Touché."

I walk with Kamiyama downstairs to the front door, down the main stairs by the lockers there's a girl there waiting nervously. She's pacing back and forth and fidgeting with her hands. It was the same girl from earlier.

As Kamiyama and I come down the stairs she looks up at me and freezes, her eyes wide with shock.

Next to me Kamiyama elbows me in the ribs and grins. "I'll just go on ahead then. Don't be too hard on her." He waves and makes his way down the stairs.

I sigh and go to my locker to put my shoes on. I glance up at the girl, who makes a squeaking noise when her eyes meet mine. "Can I help you?" I ask as I stand up, even though I know perfectly well what she wants.

"U-um, w-well." She stutters and twiddles her thumbs in front of her.

"Come on, spit it out." I put my hands on my hips and wait. This is the part I hate the most. The girls always take forever to say what they want. Why can't they just hurry up and talk? It's not like I'm some kind of god.

"Uh w-well I…" She stammers.

I heave a sigh and cross my arms. "Start with your name."

"M-Miyuki…"

I pick up my bag and start walking passed her. I have things to do, I can't stand around here waiting all day for her to remember how to talk. "I'll save you the trouble and answer you now." I say as I nonchalantly walked passed her.

Miyuki turns and looks at me expectantly.

I turn my head, with my back towards her. "No." I say flatly and continue walking. The room goes silent and my footsteps seem to echo through the whole school as I open the door and walk away from Miyuki.

"Wow, I'd say that was cold but I feel like I wouldn't be giving you enough credit. You're just an asshole." A voice from next to me says with a short laugh and I turn my head to find Kamiyama leaning against the school wall.

"You were listening?" I say with a frown. I really don't like being eavesdropped on.

Kamiyama shrugged. "Couldn't help it. I'm pretty sure that girl is going to feel that let down for years. You could've scarred her for life, how does that make you feel?" He says with a grin. He seems to grin a lot, I think he's a bit full of himself but I don't think he's that bad of a person.

Me on the other hand… "Indifferent really. It's likely that I won't be seeing much of her anymore, so why should I care?" I answer back honestly. Magic is the only thing I truly care about. Magic won't betray me, it's honest and straightforward, Magic has made my family strong. It has made me strong.

Ever since our Ancestor fought in the infamous 4th Heaven's Feel, the Tohsaka's have vowed to our magic and develop it even more. We've even thrown away Gandr, the magic that was once the staple of the Tohsaka arsenal. Since then we have focused our efforts on magic storage. However, it is now nearly impossible to obtain gems beyond what is manufactured artificially. Artificial gems do not work as well, that is except for crystals. Crystals, even manufactured ones seem to have excellent capabilities for storing magical energy.

Our ancestor Tohsaka Rin once harnessed the power to pull magical energy from other dimensions and unleash it as she wished. Unfortunately this was lost soon after her death, we've tried to recreate it but we've had very little success, the most that could be done was learn to create pocket dimensions that we now use for storage.

I was so surprised with the Seals showed up on my body. I think everyone was. There hasn't been a Heaven's Feel for nearly a thousand years. It was a chance to finally get the Grail for the family, the one would fight it seems would be me. My parents were proud of me, they said it was a great honor. I believe them. It IS an honor to fight alongside my Servant, with whom I've already scored a victory over another Servant. It was a hollow victory however, the Sakuraba girl wasn't much of an opponent, her eyes were clouded over as if she were blind, and she seemed to possess no offensive magic at all. It didn't take long for my Lancer to overcome her Saber. She did however, manage to hurt my eyes. I quickly healed them but I can still feel them getting stabbed. It was probably one of the worst pains I've ever felt.

Her Saber was a great warrior, even giving my Lancer a run for his money however he couldn't keep me from killing his Master for he was gravely wounded and was forced to retreat before the final blow.

"You seem detatched." Lancer says from next to me. He normally stays quiet and speaks only when he needs to. He's a very mysterious man, but also very wise.

"Something feels wrong, defeating Sakuraba and Saber didn't give me any pleasure." I admit flatly. Even if I didn't tell him, Lancer probably would have figured it out anyway.

Lancer strokes his beard. "When I fought Lu Bu at the great Battle of Xiapi, I had Cao Cao promise me Qin Yilu's wife if we achieved victory on that day. Lu Bu was eventually defeated, but unfortunately Cao Cao betrayed me. He saw Lady Du's beauty and took her for himself. He broke his promise to me. I suppose I should have seen it coming." He heaves a sigh of regret. "The point I am trying to make is a victory over your enemy is not always what it seems."

"Sakuraba can't be alive, I killed her myself. I made sure." I frown.

"Perhaps she was helped by another." Lancer suggests.

"Who could've…" I wrack my brain for the answers. The fight took place on the secluded rooftop where students rarely venture. If someone did help her it would have to be someone who either knew she was going to be up there or is very close to her. There was only one person I could think of that would fit that description.

"Your face tells me you have found the answer." Lancer says with a smile.

"Aoyagi…"

"The boy you encountered on the stairs this morning?"

I nod. "The Aoyagi family are rivals with the Tohsakas. They've been a thorn in our side for awhile."

"Why does this feud persist?" Lancer asks while stroking his beard.

"We do not consider them to be true Magi. They use technology more than they use magic, especially Jin." The Tohsakas have only dealt with technology when absolutely necessary, such a thing is unavoidable in this day and age. The Aoyagis however take this to the extreme, sometimes it's hard to tell when one of them is using magic at all. It goes against everything Magi stand for.

"Hmm." Lancer delved into his own thoughts for a moment before speaking again. "What shall we do about him?"

"He's probably at the hospital looking after Sakuraba. I think we should head there and deal with both of our problems at once." Clearly it seems like the best option. If we can defeat Aoyagi and his Servant, than Sakuraba and Saber will fall soon after. After all, neither one of them are in any condition to fight.

"I agree, a swift and decisive stroke is best." Lancer replies with a nod.

Lancer and I would have to take public transportation to the hospital. It's the quickest way from where we are since bus stops are positioned all around the city. I would rather face my parents with two victories under my belt than none. Their expectations of me are high to begin with, but now I'm expected to properly represent the Tohsaka family in this War.

I believe I can do it. Judging from Aoyagi's Servant at school, I can say that she more than likely won't be able to put up a good fight with Lancer. As for Aoyagi himself, he excels in close quarters combat and his magic reflects that. I'll have nothing to fear from him if I can keep him at a distance. The hallways at the hospital are certainly not ideal for this, but hospitals almost always have twists and turns in it's hallways that I can use to my advantage to stay away from Aoyagi and at the same time lead him right where I want him. Ideally, the roof would be the perfect location as it is large and flat, leaving Aoyagi little maneuvering room to dodge my attacks.

I have my plan worked out just as the bus pulls up to the hospital. Lancer and I get off of the bus with Lancer obviously in spirit form. I walk through the doors to the entrance room. It's a relatively large room with two couches on either side of the front door, and a desk with the receptionist between two hallways that go off in different directions on either side of the reception desk. On the wall to the right of me is a complete map of the entire hospital and the other buildings connected to it. There were three other buildings that connect to this main one via single long hallways. If need be I can use those as choke points. Good.

As I take my time to study the map the receptionist at the desk clears her throat. "Is there something I can help you with?" She asks politely.

I smile back at her. "Yes, I'm looking for Sakuraba Yayoi. She was brought in earlier today with severe burn wounds. I'm from her school and I want to visit her." It's not exactly a lie, I am going to pay her a visit after all, albeit one that isn't going to be pleasant for her.

"That's very sweet of you to visit, I'm sure she'll enjoy it." The woman at the desk asks while she pulls up the information on the computer in front of her. "Third floor, room 315." She points towards the elevator on the left side near the hallway.

"Thank you." I thank her and make my way towards the elevator and step inside the circular tube like structure that goes up the like blood through a vein. I push the button for the 3rd floor and simply wait. With a chime the door opens and I exit the elevator.

Walking towards me talking amongst themselves are Aoyagi and his Servant.

The two of them freeze when they see me and the enemy Servant reaches for something on her hips. I hadn't anticipated this, I figured I would run into him eventually but right off of the elevator? Shit. He must just be leaving after visiting with Sakuraba. Now I'm caught in this elevator with nowhere to go, I have to think this through carefully or I could just as easily be killed here.


	12. The First Fight

ACT XII – The First Fight

As I walk with Archer towards the elevator I look up and see the doors slide open. Standing inside was the person I was going to look for. Tohsaka Kenichi. Time slowed down. He was alone, and as he looked up his eyes widened with surprise. Did he not expect to run into me here either? He must have come here to try and finish Yayoi off? He must have thought with her and Saber injured he could kill her quickly, I guess it's fortunate that I'm here. I do admit, I don't think I'm quite ready for him yet, I was hoping I could get some prep time or something.

Next to me I can feel Archer tense. In an instant she reaches into her chest and pulls out... a gun? It's nearly too ridiculous too believe. But there it is, right in front of me. Archer pulled out one of the revolvers she carried around out of her cleavage, her breasts eventually releasing their grip on the object with an exaggerated bounce.

A fraction of a second later a figure appears next to Tohsaka. Clad in bulky green armor is a huge guy, Neo Chinese by the look of him. He has the longest beard I've ever seen and carried an even longer spear. He had a stern look in his eyes and his gaze was focused on Archer. Without a second of hesitation Archer fires her pistol at Tohsaka. I didn't even see Lancer move but Archer's bullet didn't reach it's target. I hear a noise of metal on metal and a clatter as the bullet fell against the floor.

Lancer grabs Tohsaka and throws him single-handed into the adjacent hallway to the right of the elevator as Archer fires another shot. Somebody will have heard those and security will be here pretty soon. The last thing I need is the FDS showing up and arresting Archer and I.

"Archer, stairs!" I shout and point towards the door leading towards the stairwell off to the side.

We have to get out of here, this isn't exactly the best place to have a magical battle. The roof might be a good place. If Archer and I have to retreat, it's an easy jump off of the building and a short float down with my belt buckle. However that would put Yayoi at risk as well, meaning retreating isn't exactly an option. I'm going to have to kill Tohsaka here, to protect her. I've never killed anyone before, but I'll do whatever I have to for her. I can't let him live. Tohsaka will just keep coming back for both of us, the persistent bastard.

Archer and I make for the stairs and she very nearly kicks it off the hinges. It swings open and we rush inside and begin to head up the stairs. The stairwell is painted in the same color as the hallways of the hospital, this oddly unsettling eggshell white. I never quite understood the feeling but whenever I visit a hospital the sterilized air, smell of chemicals and combination with the off white paint on the walls always make my stomach churn. I can't help but remember the feeling I had when my parents were here, slowly and painfully dying in their beds.

Behind us, I can hear Lancer making his way after us. His suit of armor making quite a bit of noise when he moves as the metal plates grind against one another. Tohsaka won't risk killing Yayoi until he's dealt with us. Sending Lancer after us and going after Yayoi sounds like a good plan, but even a weak and injured Servant would make quick work of any Magi. Especially a Saber-class. Tohsaka wouldn't risk it.

"The roof, Aoyagi?" I hear Tohsaka call after me. I pay him no mind and continue rushing up the stairs with Archer. By the sound of it, he and Lancer are now in the stairwell and casually following behind. They know what I'm doing, they're not stupid. They also know there's no way out from up there, not as long as the both of us are alive at any rate.

"No civilians up there. No way out either." I can practically hear the smirk in his voice.

"I thought it was a good idea. Wouldn't want to publicly shame your family when I kick your ass!" I shoot back. I'm getting real sick of his crap, he thinks he's so superior to everyone else. It's about time he gets knocked down a peg or two.

Next to me, Archer picks me up and throws me over her shoulder so she can run faster.

"Ya'll can say whatever ya like to em after he's six feet under, Sugar. Keep yer head cool." Archer says as she bounds up the stairs. She's running so fast the floors go by in an instant. We soon reach the door to the roof and Archer kicks it open and rushes out onto the flat steel surface.

"Put me down already!" I try and get out of Archer's grip.

"Alright, calm down Sugar." She says as she lets me slide off onto the roof. "Nothin' wrong with a little manhandlin'." She winks at me.

"I hate it when you do that." I frown and turn towards the door that we entered from. I crack my knuckles in preparation for the coming fight.

The fight between us will probably be mostly one on one. Archer will fight Lancer, and I'll fight Tohsaka. I haven't seen much of Archer's abilities beyond her run and gun strategies and her inhumanly amazing sweater puppies so I'm not exactly sure what her capabilities are. I know Lancer is a very capable warrior and has a powerful Noble Phantasm at his disposal from the information I managed to get out of Yayoi.

As for Tohsaka, he and I couldn't be more different. It's precisely this reason why we hate each other. Tohsaka has a wide range of abilities including fire, ice and rune magic. He's deadly at any range, and is very intelligent and athletic on top of everything else. I've only focused on my electricity manipulation. My range is limited to close combat only, but I am trained in Judo and Baji Quan. My knowledge of magic is pretty good in my opinion, but a lot of it isn't the kind of thing I can use in combat.

I can hear footsteps coming up the stairs and it isn't long before Tohsaka and Lancer make their way onto the roof. Tohsaka stops halfway between me and the door with Lancer standing a bit in front of him, ready to defend.

"You've caused me a lot of trouble today Aoyagi. Never thought I would have to kill the same person twice in one day." Tohsaka says with a sigh.

"Twice? What makes you think I'll let you get another chance?"

"What makes you think you can stop me?"

A deathly silence comes after that. The four of us stare at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. I can hear my heart beating in my chest and feel the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end. I'm past the point of no return now. No matter what happens in the next few minutes one thing is clear, I'm going to have to kill Tohsaka to save Yayoi. Something I'm really not looking forward to. As much of an asshole as Tohsaka is, I'd rather not have to kill him. Just beating him up would make me feel better.

"Criminy, can't we just get to killin' each other already?" Archer exclaims impatiently and fires a shot from one of her revolvers at Lancer.

Lancer dodges to the side and rushes straight for Archer while Tohsaka throws a jet of fire from his palms. Even across the roof, I can feel the heat from the blaze and I jump backwards out of his range even then the flames are just barely missing me.

Next to me Archer dodges to her right while firing her twin revolvers mid roll. She's surprisingly quick, my eyes are barely able to follow some of her movements as she and Lancer traded blows.

I need to find a way to get close to Tohsaka but it isn't going to be easy. There isn't anything on this roof that I can use as a shield, and I don't have any defense against that kind of magic. I'm at a disadvantage. Just rushing at him is a sure way to get myself killed. I need to think of something to get in close, if I can do that, I should be able to put him six feet under.

I dodge to the side to avoid another flame jet. I only have a split second before he sends another attack my way. My gravity disruptor is also useless here. Sure, I can jump high into the air using it, but I can't change directions. I would be a sitting duck, a roasted one at that. We're on the roof... so maybe I can use the buildings? I take a quick look around and notice the other buildings surrounding the hospital, they are varied in height but it looks like there is one that I could maybe use. Well, that's something at least. If anything I can use it to get the hell out of here.

On the other side of the roof, Archer is doing just as well as me, and is getting visibly frustrated. Her eyebrows are furrowed and her teeth are clenched. No matter how hard she may be trying, she can't land a shot on Lancer. Lancer is closing the distance fast between them, he's faster than Archer and even in that armor he's been able to either parry or dodge Archer's bullets.

The more I look back, the more I realize how stupid it was to come up here. This is a wide open field, Tohsaka can easily keep me at range here. I need to get him back inside and into those narrow corridors.

I turn back to Tohsaka and clench my hand into a fist, then raise the middle finger. "As much as I'd love to stick around, I'm going to have to relocate for right now." I grin at him and turn to Archer. "We're getting out of here!" I yell and motion for her to follow me.

"You asshole! You're running away!?" Tohsaka yells at me and stomps his foot into the ground, creating an explosion of fire that radiates out from him and threatens to fill up the rooftop.

Archer and I start to sprint towards the edge with the tallest building. I grab Archer and jump off just as the flames begin to lick the edge of the concrete building. "It's not running away! I'm just advancing in the opposite direction!" I answer Tohsaka as I leap towards the opposite building.

Tohsaka growls in frustration and starts to make his way towards the edge of the building, probably thinking to aim more fire blasts at me. By the time he reaches the edge, I've kicked off the side of the building and crashed through the window on the floor below the roof. Pain runs through my body as we crash through into a luckily empty room and knock over the bed inside.

I lay still for a moment sprawled across the floor as an unnatural silence follows the loud noise that has been going on for the past few minutes. I somehow managed to land on top of Archer and my head has dug into her neck.

"Arrgh! Fuuuuck that huuuuurt!" I exclaim as I left my head up and roll off of Archer's body. My clothes are torn and there's lots of glass imbedded within my skin.

"If ya let me know what you were plannin' I could've shot out the window for ya." Archer comments as she gets up off of the floor.

"Hindsight's a huge bitch." I groan as I pull a particularly large piece of glass out of my leg. I manage to painfully pull myself from the ground as Archer opens the door to the hallway and makes sure it's clear.

"Ya gonna be alright sugar? We ain't out of this yet." Archer asks.

"Yeah, no way I'm letting Tohsaka take me out like this." I say and pull myself to my feet, albeit painfully.

Archer nods. "Okay, let's get it done." She says and the two of us slowly make our way back into the hallway.

I'm not even sure what floor I'm on. I take a quick look at the numbers on the rooms and confirm we're on the 5th floor. The FDS will no doubt be here soon with all the commotion. If Tohsaka and I are going to be running around the building trying to kill each other I'd like to clear everyone else out if possible. I start looking around for ideas and notice the fire alarm on the wall.

"Archer there should be a supply closet on this floor." I say to her, still processing the ideas in my mind.

"Yes, and?" She tilts her head in confusion.

"We need to start a fire."

"Ya'll want ta start a hospital on fire?"

"Yeah, they'll evacuate the building just in time for the FDS to get here. I should be able to either finish Tohsaka or escape in that time. Nobody should get hurt." I explain.

"Well alright then." Archer agrees and we search down the halls for the supply closet. There should be all kinds of chemicals inside I can use to start a fire. It doesn't take long to find it since it's clearly labeled and I open the door.

"You don't have any matches do you?" I ask as I start searching the labels for something that'll be flammable but won't blow up the whole building. Out of the corner of my eye I see Archer holster a revolver and dig a hand into her clevage, pulling out a small pack of matches.

"What else do you keep in there?"

Archer winks. "That's a trade secret darlin'."

I shrug and start pouring various chemicals onto the floor, taking great care not to get any on myself. I watch as the colors of blue and red mix together to form this threatening looking puddle on the ground. I have Archer throw me the match and I strike it. I've never used a match like this before because it uses wood as the stick and wood isn't used much anymore since it's rare and expensive.

"Might want to step back." I motion for Archer to step back and I step back with her. I flick the match into the small closet and after a brief bust of heat the small closet the puddle bursts aflame.

After a second or two I go to the wall and flip the fire alarm. Even if the flames and fumes reach the sensors and the sprinkler system kicks on, it shouldn't be enough to put out the fire. Chemical fires are pretty nasty, and as long as no one breathes in the fumes they should be perfectly fine. The alarm rings in my ears as the plan starts off.

()()()

"You shouldn't be using all of your mana to heal me. Save some for yourself." Saber says with a frown as he sits next to my bed. His wounds from Lancer are already looking better since I've been using most of my magical energy to help him.

"I can't do much like this anyway. I need you to go and protect Jin." I say urgently. My burn wounds won't be healed for a few weeks, I can't do anything when I'm stuck in this bed and having Saber sit here uselessly is a waste.

"I'm here to protect you, not him." Saber replies flatly.

"Saber please. Jin is important."

"I can not leave you alone. I WILL not leave you alone, not while the man who is out to kill you is still in the immediate vicinity." Saber refuses.

"Saber, by the power I hold over you as your Master, I hereby order you to leave me here and to go defend Jin with your life if need be." I concentrate on the order that's given and I can feel the power coming from the Command Seals on my body. I didn't want to have to resort to this, but I can't at any cost lose Jin. No matter what happens. I can't imagine my life without him.

Saber looked like he was about to protest but his mouth opened and then twisted shut like he had no control over himself anymore. Saber got up out of his chair and began to walk towards the door in a strange manner. His legs were stiffened as if he were trying to stay rooted to the spot but something wouldn't let him. The second I see him acting like this I regret having to order him like that. To have something take control away and force something else is a terrible and scary thing.

"I'm sorry." I say after him. Just as he leaves, the fire alarm begins to ring.

()()()

After the fire alarm began to ring it didn't take long for the hospital staff to starting hustling about checking for the fire. The hospital AI found the fire in a matter of seconds and called the authorities on it's own, the staff then started to evacuate the people on the 5th floor because of the harmful fumes. It gave me enough time to get down to the lower floors.

The gunfire rings in my ears as Archer runs behind me and shoots at Tohsaka and Lancer following behind. There are two basements below the main floor, B1 is storage while B2 is the morgue. Archer and I previously took a service elevator down to B1 since down there it's practically a maze. Large buildings like this have their own storage facilities built into the infrastructure. Currently, I'm am being followed by Tohsaka and Lancer and ducking under jets of fire. Archer and I duck around a corner and wait for Lancer and Tohsaka to come through.

Tohsaka comes through first and I lunge out from the corner I grab his outstretched arm and switch on my Magic Circuits. I run electricity along my skin and into his arm and muscles, I put as much into him as I could in an instant which should fry the nerves and disable his entire arm from his shoulder to his figertips. He yelps in pain and behind him Lancer aims a stab at me. It nicks the concrete wall, leaving a deep cut on it as Archer and I run through the corridors again.

His arm should be out and regrettably I wasn't able to kill him, I almost always need a headshot for that, if I could catch his spine I could probably do it, but getting behind him will be impossible. At least I took out his good arm. He can cast magic with the other one sure, but it isn't his dominant arm.

"That really hurt, Aoyagi!" Tohsaka yells through clenched teeth. "Shit, I can't move it." I hear him whisper to Lancer. "I'm gonna roast you slowly for this." He growls.

"Well ya can always just do that to his other arm." Archer says.

"I don't think that's going to work twice." I look back as fire comes exploding around the corner. My plan is to get down to the freezer. Tohsaka's fire should be less powerful down there, especially with one less arm. The other problem is Lancer. Archer's abilities seem to be... lacking in a way. There's no way she can take Lancer in a straight up fight. I hate all this running around, it's not really the way I'm used to doing things but I can't afford to take risks with Tohsaka.

I pass another sign that confirms we're getting close to the freezer. I have to come up with some kind of plan of attack soon as Tohsaka and Lancer start to close in behind us. If I can defeat those two down here, I can safely exit the building through the front door. Hell, the FDS will escort me out. I imagine they're here right now, if not they're getting close.

"Jin, I think ya should know I think there's another Servant closin' in on us." Archer says. "I think it must be Saber."

()()()

My body moves on it's own but my mind is still my own. It is as if I am watching a dream that I have no control over. My duty was to protect my Master and lead her into victory in this battle if I can. Yet she seems to care more for the life of this boy than she does for her own, in fact in the little time I have spent with her thus far I can conclude he is what she cares most for out of anything. I cannot say that I do not understand her feelings. I have also once risked my life for someone else. However, I do not like this feeling, this spell that has been cast on me. Any moment my Master could be attacked and there is little right now I can do to stop it.

My only hope to salvage this situation is to complete the command as quickly as possible. I clutch my sword in my hand. Lancer is here too. He is a wonderful warrior and I wish to fight him again, this is my sole reason for being here. I do not need a wish to get that which I most desire. I need only fight a worthy opponent.

It wasn't hard to find my way down and follow the trail of my target. They are being extremely loud, shouting at each other without any care of their surroundings. There is Archer as well, her loud weapons could be heard from a long distance, her location is easy enough to track by that alone, not even including the smell it leaves behind.

I am meant to aid them though, and I believe I can do this merely by removing Lancer from the pursuit. Wounded as I am, I should still be able to put up enough of a fight to distract him long enough for Jin and Archer to dispatch their enemy.

I find them easy and materialize myself behind Lancer, who had to stop to block my sword swing, or risk decapitation. Lancer looks surprised to see me here and he throws his long beard over his shoulder. He is now at a disadvantage, he and his Master cannot ignore my presence here and letting his Master continue alone after another enemy Servant would just be suicidal. Ahead of them, I see Archer stop her Master and both of them stop.

()()()

He actually showed up to help us. I didn't think he would ever do it, but Yayoi could have ordered him to since I can't see him doing it on his own.

"Looks like the tables have turned, Tohsaka!" I say to him.

He frowns, he knows he's not in a good situation. He balls up a fist and hits it against the wall where he's at.

Archer points his guns at him. "Hands up, nice and slow."

Saber points his sword at Lancer. "Drop your weapon."

Tohsaka sighs. "Do it, Lancer." Lancer silently obeys and his spear vanishes. "You got me. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come in here. I figured we'd be okay since your girlfriend was hospitalized and her Servant was supposed to be out of action." Tohsaka looks backwards at Saber. "Guess she ordered you to do it, you still look pretty beat up." Tohsaka slowly raises his hands above his heads.

"I am more than healed for battle, do not take me lightly." Saber growls.

"You're really lucky Aoyagi. I would have killed you and your Servant, if he hadn't come along." Tohsaka frowns.

"Life's a bitch isn't it? Too bad yours is over." I sneer at him.

"Says who?" Tohsaka snaps his fingers. A large jet of black smoke erupts from the wall between him and I and fills the hallway in an instant. I hear footsteps as Tohsaka and Lancer slip past Saber and run towards the entrance.

"How in the blazes did he do that?" Archer coughs.

"Must have done something when he pounded the wall, that's the only explanation, drew a quick seal maybe." I cough as well. "Shit, how did I miss that?"

"They are escaping." Saber points out.

"I know! We need to go up the stairs." I push my way by Saber and start to run back down the corridors after Tohsaka and Lancer. I should have known he would have some trick up his sleeve like that. All my plans fell apart, the two of them will probably get away. On the up side, maybe he'll leave us alone for awhile. After going up against two Servants at once, he'll most likely retreat and come up with some other plan. He seems to have a vendetta against Yayoi since he failed to kill her once.

The three of us reach the stairs and begin our climb upwards. It takes only a few seconds to reach the ground floor and bust out through the door, but I only find an empty hallway. The hallways that lead down to the lower levels are off to the side in the employees only part of the hospital.

"I'll check the door, you boys stay here." Archer winks and raises a pistol. She slowly begins to move toward the door and once there she peers through the window.

"I see the Master, but not the Servant. There's a whole heap of other people out there too. A lot of em look like lawmen." Archer reports.

I sigh. "We're too late. Lancer probably dematerialized himself and Tohsaka probably got seen out the front door. It was my plan of escape too."

"Then we have failed. I must report back to my Master since this battle is over." Saber seems oddly relieved.

"She'll be outside probably. Let's try and sneak out of here with everybody else." I suggest.

Archer nods. "Now would be a good time. Looks like everybody is preoccupied with the evacuation." She says as she puts her revolvers away and opens the door quietly. Saber and I follow her out and we head towards the front door.

The door sings open to reveal a huge mess. Ambulances and FDS vehicles have the streets surrounding the hospital sealed off. Nurses were tending to bedridden patience still in their beds and being given fluids. Some were still in wheelchairs while others seemed to be able to walk fine with a little assistance. I spot Tohsaka near the back of a particularly large crowd. He sneers and waves as a final greeting, then disappears into the crowd.

"Jin!" I hear Yayoi calling my name from somewhere. I turn my head until I spot her. She is waving animatedly and the nurse helping her walk begins to help her over. By now, Saber has shifted himself into spirit form, so Archer and I go to meet Yayoi.

"Are you okay?" I ask and give her a hug after she's released by the nurse.

She nods. "Yes, I'm fine, but you look like you could use some help." Yayoi looks at my body with a worrying expression.

I almost forgot that I'm covered in cuts and broken glass. I didn't have a lot of time to think about how much it hurts, but it kind of does. No way I'll let Yayoi see me in pain though, she's got enough to worry about as it is.

"No, I'm fine, really." I reassure her.

"No, you are not." The nurse presses me and calls over someone with a first aid kit.

Now I'm being led over to an ambulance where the glass is being painfully removed from my skin, and my cuts disinfected.

"Honestly, I don't know what you have been doing but you should be more careful!" I'm scolded by the paramedics while Archer laughs to herself.

"When do you think Yayoi can be released?" I ask the nurse. I want to get her out of the hospital and back somewhere where I can protect her better.

"We were hoping to release Ms. Sakuraba tonight, actually. Her burns appear to be healing well, I don't believe we can do anything more for her that can't be done at home." The nurse says.

"That's great news. Will her skin ever fully heal?" I ask, looking at the patches of bandaging on Yayoi's neck that more than likely continues to go down most of half of her body.

The nurse shakes her head. "Unfortunately there will always be some scarring with those kind of burns."

Out of the corner of my eye I see Yayoi frown.

"When do ya expect all this to clear up?" Archer asks, referring to the fire.

"I don't know, I hope we don't have to relocate the more serious patients to other hospitals. Mr. Yukimura over there was supposed to have a heart transplant this evening." The nurse looks worried as she looks over her shoulder at a middle aged guy in a bed with fluids being fed into him.

We wait and talk for about an hour before the FDS deem the building safe again. The patients are being led back to their rooms and Yayoi and I sit and watch the news for a bit. The news trucks are already outside interviewing a police officer.

"Do you suspect foul play here, Detective?" The reporter asks.

"After examining the scene I have determined that this was indeed attempted arson. As to who the perpetrators were, or why someone would do such a thing is still beyond me, but the citizens can rest assured we're doing everything we can to bring the people involved to justice." The Detective answers back.

"Detective Hayakawa, you were on the scene of the incident on Engineering with the bombs were you not?" The reporter asks.

"Indeed I was."

"Do you think these two incidents are related?"

"Hmm. I don't think so, I would have to think about that more before I can come to any kind of conclusion." Hayakawa answered vaguely.

"How is that investigation going?" The reporter asks.

"I'm afraid I can't answer that kind of question at this present time, sorry." Hayakawa replies genuinely apologetic.

"Hmph." Archer scoffs. "That there means he ain't got no idea what's goin' on."

At this time, the door to Yayoi's room opens and her parents walk in the door. I get up and bow in respect. It's been some time since I've seen her parents. They're nice people, but I have no idea what they might think about the war and our relationship in it, I don't even know how much they know.

"Aoyagi, good to see you." Her father, Tenzin greets me and offers his hand. I raise my head and shake his hand.

"Mr, and Mrs. Sakuraba." I greet them.

"Jin, darling. I'm so thankful for you looking after Yayoi for us." Her mother, Yukiko thanks me, her eyes filled with happiness. "And who might you be?" She looks eagerly over at Archer.

Archer tips her hat. "Bonnie ma'am, I'm a friend of that little lady there and this'un here." She pats me on the shoulder.

It doesn't seem like her parents are treating me any differently than they normally do. Her dad has always been a little abrasive towards me, but not overly so. Over the years he's grown to trust me where Yayoi is concerned. He's a grizzled looking man in his 50s and seems to have a permanent 5 o clock shadow. Her mother is the exact opposite, beautiful, elegant, and friendly. She often wears her long, black hair in a ponytail and always has the perfect amount of makeup on.

"It's a pleasure, Bonnie." Archer and Yukiko shake hands.

"It looks like you've seen a little action yourself." Tenzin says as he looks me over, then looks over at Archer.

"Just got into a bit of a fight is all." I try to answer as vaguely as possible without lying.

"How are you feeling, honey?" Tenzin looks over at Yayoi.

"Better, Jin has been keeping a close eye on me." Yayoi smiles.

"Your father and I were so worried when we got the call telling us what happened, They said you wouldn't tell them how you got burned." Yukiko says, asking her in a roundabout way.

"It's something we can't really talk about here." Yayoi answers.

"I figured it had something to do with THAT." Tenzin frowned. "I wish it was one of us instead of you." He scoffs.

"Come on, dear let's get you home." Yukiko offers Yayoi her hands to help her daughter out of her bed.

"I can stand on my own, Mom, but thanks." Yayoi says with a smile and slowly gets up out of bed. One of her legs is covered mostly in a bandage wrap and winces a little when she puts any weight on it.

"Easy there darlin'." Archer warns.

"Need a ride, Aoyagi?" Tenzin offers as the family makes their way towards the door.

I shake my head. "Thanks for the offer but I'll make my own way home." I'd rather not be a burden on them and it'll give me some time to think about my next move on the way home.

"Again, we can't thank you enough for taking care of Yayoi, if there's anything you ever need don't hesitate to ask. We so rarely get to see you any more and you live in that house all by yourself." Yukiko replies.

I swallow. I want to keep a closer eye on Yayoi but her parents won't let her out of the house at this rate. She has Saber, but he's just as hurt as she is. Before I realize it, my mouth answered Yukiko against my will, and better judgement.

"In that case I want to keep looking after Yayoi, she can stay at my place."

Yukiko opens her mouth but Tenzin answers first.

"No. I think that's a bit dangerous." He answers flatly.

"Tenzin! You couldn't possibly think that Jin would try something do you?"

"Well I-" He started to explain.

"Tenzin Sakuraba, you know Jin better than that!" Yukiko frowns.

"Honey, our daugher is just now getting out of the hospital and needs to keep her treatment going. Her bandages will have to be changed periodically, as her parents it's our duty to perform this." Tenzin explains. "And don't use my whole name."

"Changing bandages isn't rocket science, Tenzin." Yukiko pouts.

Archer clears her throat. "I believe I can see where Mr. Sakuraba is comin' from." Ya'll are worried that because she has burn wounds that Jin would have to see her without clothes on right?" Archer asks.

Tenzin looks away from Archer, indicating that she was probably right.

"Well, Jin has been lookin' after me for a few days and I can vouch for him. If Yayoi stays with us, Jin don't even have to be the one to change her bandages. I'm more than capable of doin' it and there ain't nothin' wrong with a girl lookin' out for another girl is there?" Archer offers.

Yukiko grins and looks over at her husband. "See? Problem solved."

Tenzin heaves a reluctant sigh. "We haven't even asked Yayoi her opinion yet. Why don't we see what she wants." He says.

"Um, I would like to stay with Jin and Bonnie if I could." Yayoi answers.

Tenzin throws his hands up in frustration. "Fine. Do as you wish." He turns his head to me, and then leaves.

"Don't worry about him, he'll get over it. We'll drop Yayoi at your house this evening, okay?" Yukiko says.

I nod. "Sure, thanks Mrs. Sakuraba."

"I'll see you later, Jin." Yayoi waves and leaves with her parents.

As they leave, I sink back into the chair I was sitting in earlier. "I'm exhausted."

"Yeah, another close call today." Archer replies and plops herself down on the bed, her breasts bouncing wildly.

"Don't get comfortable, we need to get home too." I say, forcing myself up out of the chair.

It's been another long day. I almost turned that fight around with Tohsaka but he ended up escaping anyway. I highly doubt it's the last time I'll see him. I haven't had a real victory since this fight started, it's just been a lot of getaways and narrow escapes. I hope to change that soon, but for the time being it may be best just to lay low and help Saber and Yayoi heal. I hope Yayoi is going to be okay, I mean, having to go through the rest of her life with half her body scarred can't be an easy thing. It makes me want to get at Tohsaka that much more, but I can't just keep rushing in to it. Tohsaka isn't the kind of person that would work on. I have to think of a strategy, and get him right where I want him. I have to find out what makes him tick, and then pick at it until he makes a mistake. I need to find a counter for his long range abilities since he's a much better mage than I am. I've got a long road ahead of me, but hopefully with Yayoi, Archer, and Saber next to me, we'll be able to pull through this together.


	13. Proposition

ACT XIII – Proposition

The walk home from the hospital is painful. I can feel the deep wound in my side threaten to open again with every step I take. I'm more exhausted than I realized. The fight had taken a toll on both my body and my mind. I glance over at Archer, who is looking at me worriedly.

"Let's get a ride home shall we? Running from Lancer that whole while really did a number on me." She said casually while dramatically fanning herself with her hand. "Where do ya catch a train around these parts?" She asked.

I chuckle weakly. She's trying to be considerate, but she can't bear to watch me walk all the way home like this despite the fact that I offered to walk home earlier. In reality I didn't want to bother the Sakurabas. They have enough to worry about with Yayoi, they don't need to be worrying about me too, especially considering the fact that we're supposed to be enemies in the first place.

"There's a bus stop that way." I point down the street towards a glass box with a door and a steel bench inside. It was about a block and a half down.

It was pretty empty at about this time so we were the only ones there. I push open the door and take a seat on the bench. I heave a sigh and lean my back against the cool glass. "You didn't have to be considerate. I'm pretty well aware I must look like shit." I respond to Archer as she sits down next to me.

"Well I-"

I close my eyes and crane my neck upwards. "We got beaten pretty badly again today. If Saber hadn't shown up when he did, that would have been it for us."

"I think yer bein' too hard on yerself. We forced him to run away like the little yellow bastard that he is. I wouldn't call that a victory, but it damn well ain't no loss either." Archer says with confidence.

"Maybe, but he still got away."

"Ya still zapped his arm. That's a start, ain't it?" Archer grabs my arm and hugs it. My arm wedges itself between her breasts. It feels soft and warm, like folding a pillow in half and sticking your arm in it. Archer scoots closer to me, uncomfortably close, so close our bodies are touching. She's warm, but she doesn't smell like perfume or anything at all feminine. She smells like sweat and gunpowder. My heart flutters, as does something else.

"Ya can't let that little boy get you down. If'n somethin' like this is enough ta break yer spirit, then ya really did lose. Ya need ta restore that confidence ya have when ya were fightin' ta protect Yayoi." She squeezes my arm a little tighter.

"That's easier said than done, after the many close calls that we've already had." I reply, trying to push the sensations from my mind that Archer is thrusting upon me. She's trying to make me feel better, but she's doing the exact opposite. It's doesn't feel bad, by any stretch of the imagination, it's just a little unsettling. Usually the only person I allow to do things like this is Yayoi, I just don't care enough to stop her right now.

"I hate ta tell ya but this ain't meant ta be a walk in the park. I'd bet ya anythin' nearly every single fight we have from here on out is gonna be a near death experience. Ya think I got where I did in life by tryin' ta be safe? Ya recall I used ta jump off horses onto movin' trains. Safe ain't exactly a word I'm very familiar with." Archer explains.

"Yeah, you're right. Even with Magic casting a single spell can mean death. Every time I use magic there's a chance I could die. It's something Magi have to get used to at a very young age. I think I might be... scared." It took nearly all of my willpower to admit those words. I'm not sure what caused me to open up to Archer like that. Maybe it was her physical contact with me that took down my mental barriers. I wonder if that's what she was going for all along. Hearing myself say it, hearing it come out of my own mouth was sort of the final realization for me.

I am scared. I'm scared of being burned alive by Tohsaka. I'm scared of losing Yayoi. I'm scared of Rider opening up a full broadside on my house. I'm scared of waking up in the middle of the night with Assassin standing over me. I'm scared of having to fight Yayoi. I'm scared of what Archer will do when the War is drawing to a close, and the only Servants left are her and Saber. I'm scared of so many things that sometimes I can't think straight.

"It takes a lot of courage for a man to admit that he's scared. Bein' scared don't make ya a coward or any less brave." Archer releases my arm and wraps her arms around my neck. "Bein' afraid and fightin' all those battles anyway is what makes you really brave. Overcomin' yer fear is what will make ya strong." Archer begins to pull me closer to her.

My head starts to swim. What's she doing? I had been intently thinking about what she's been saying that I almost forgot she was there. She's right. Now that I've admitted that I am afraid, the next step I have to take is to grit my teeth and punch my fear right in the face. I need to conquer it, use it to make me stronger. I need to strongly think about what exactly is scaring me, and fight away to defeat it.

I can feel Archer's breath on my face. I think she's moving in to kiss me, her eyes are shining with what looks like lust. I raise up my hands and put them on her shoulders to push her away when I hear a loud hissing noise from outside. It sounds exactly like a bus exhaling pressure.

"Um, I can drive another round and come back if you want..." A timid voice comes from behind Archer, who has nearly moved herself into my lap.

I look up over Archer's shoulder and see a skinny guy with glasses looking intently from the driver's seat of the bus, several pairs of eyes are also peeking outside the windows of he bus. I blush furiously and push Archer off of me.

"Uh, that's okay, I think we'll get on." I say and grab Archer, leading her on the bus.

"Yer no fun." Archer puffs out her cheeks in disappointment as she takes a seat next to me.

The bus drops us off as close as possible and I wander in through the front door after it slides open with a hissing sound. That noise is one of the most pleasing sounds I've heard in awhile. Signifying my return home. My home base. My sanctuary from the battles outside. Relief. My bed sounds really inviting, but I at least have to stay active at least long enough for Yayoi to get here later. She's probably packing a few things then her parents are going to drop her by.

"Welcome home, Jin. You really look like hell." Hilda greets me, a hint of concern in her voice. The day that Hilda starts to worry about me is the day the world will end.

"Got into a fight." I reply vaguely and throw myself on the couch.

"Ahhh~!" Archer plops down on the opposite side of the couch and stretches out, laying her legs across my lap.

"Something tells me you nearly got yourself killed again." Hilda says plainly.

I switch on the TV and the news is playing. "Yeah, you'd be right." I say lazily and zone out. That Detective, Hayakawa I think his name was, is on the news talking about the fire and the evacuation.

"We have determined that the fire was caused by the burning of chemicals in one of the upper floor closets. We've sent teams in and opened the windows to let the fumes dissipate, the damage is not significant at all and we've deemed that the building is safe." Hayakawa answers a question that was asked before I turned on the TV. He's got dark circles under his eyes which tells me he hasn't been getting much sleep. Takes his job seriously I guess.

"Do you have any idea who might have committed the crime and why?" The reporter asks before shoving the microphone rather forcefully back into the Detective's face.

Hayakawa's brows furrowed. "We are currently on the lookout for possible motives and suspects. Upon further inspection of the building we found scorch marks along the walls in the basement, indicating the perpetrator was down there too." He looked frustrated. Between this and the murders in the engine block he hasn't made much progress on either investigation.

"How does he keep his job if he never finds nothin'?" Archer scoffs.

"What was the deal with those murders in the engine room anyway?" I say to myself out loud without realizing it.

"Smells like sabotage to me." Hilda replies jokingly.

"Right, sabotage. Some jackass blows up the engines and we fall out of our already decaying orbit and crash into Earth in a burning pile of slag. You'd have to be some kind of serious wacko to try something like that. Nobody on this station is dumb enough to want to kill themselves and take everyone else with them." I wave it off as nonsense.

"What do _you_ think happened then?" Hilda asks.

"Don't know, thankfully it isn't my job to find out." I lay back in my couch and lean my head back.

"AOYAGI WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!" I'm jolted awake by someone screaming my name. Archer nearly jumps through the ceiling and pulls out a gun on reflex.

On my TV screen is the nun I met before. Marque was her name I think, the most unladylike girl I've ever met, and she's supposed to be a nun and the Observer for that matter.

"Holy shit, you scared the hell out of me!" I yell back at her. How the hell did she even get on my screen in the first place? More importantly, did I fall asleep? Last thing I remember was watching TV next to Archer.

"Good! What the fuck do you think you're doing setting a hospital on fire? Do you know how many memory wipes I had to do? How many of those cops I had to throw off of your trail?" Marque continues to shout angrily.

"What in blue blazes do ya think you're doin' comin' in here and yellin' suddenly? I've half a mind to come down there an' give ya six good reasons why ya should never do it again!" Archer's retorts as her whole body shakes.

"Bring it, you fucking hussy! We'll see how tough you sound after the rest of the Church comes down here and shoves a Holy Scripture right up your tight little asshole!"

I scratch the back of my head. "Isn't it your job to do that sort of thing?" I reply to what she yammered about after Archer started yelling at her too.

"That doesn't mean you can just go around and start blowing shit up! Even Rider has some common fucking sense!" I can't help but stare at the vein popping out of her forehead.

"Tell me you didn't show up on my TV screen to yell at me about doing your job." She's starting to annoy me now. If she doesn't have any reason for doing this other than yelling at me for no reason than I'll just unplug the TV and shut her off.

Sister Marque takes a deep breath and produces a flask from somewhere, she takes a huge gulp from it and seems to regain a little of her composure. "You're lucky I need you. You, and your little girlfriend who I haven't managed to get a hold of yet."

I glance over at Archer who is still mumbling profanities under her breath through gritted teeth. "Need us? For what?" I ask, now genuinely curious.

"One of the Servant teams has lost their fucking minds." Marque says as eloquently as ever. "I'm sure you've heard about all the little murders popping up."

My jaw drops. "You've got to be kidding me." Why would a Servant go around killing random people? It doesn't make any sense.

"Maybe they just looked at them funny, I don't fucking know. I knew those two were batshit insane the minute I laid eyes on them. The point is, they've sliced up more people and I can't keep covering this shit up." Marque growled.

"Wait, they killed more people besides the ones in the engine block? I haven't heard anything about that." I reply.

"These latest ones are more... recent. If they're going to keep doing this shit, then they're going to force me to put a mark on their heads. So I need you to hunt them down and kill them." Sister Marque says as she lights up a cigarette.

"Why should I? I have my own plans I'm dealing with." I cross my arms. I have Tohsaka to deal with, let one of the other Masters deal with it.

"Like what? Getting your ass handed to you by Lancer again?" Marque scoffs. "Anyway, technically you can do whatever the fuck you want as long as you don't reveal to the world that Magi are real. I'm supposed to offer a reward of some kind to make you think about making this a priority. The same offer will be made to all the other Masters." Marque explains.

"Reward huh?" Archer puts away her revolver and looks intrigued. "Now yer speakin' my language."

"What exactly would you be offering?" I cross my arms. If the reward is significant enough I might consider it. It could possibly help me get my head back in the right place.

Sister Marque shrugs. "Haven't thought that far ahead yet." She then snaps her fingers like she came to a conclusion. "How about I don't kill you?" She says, as if it were the most brilliant idea she's ever come up with.

"Ya gotta be kiddin' me, Sister." Archer frowns.

"You greedy shitheads, I thought I was being generous." Sister Marque puffs out her cheeks. "The only other thing I can think of would be the Emergency Funds that have been authorized to me." She says after another moment.

I still can't quite grasp her personality. She has the strangest attitude I've ever witnessed in a person. She's bloodthirsty, impolite, and doesn't appear to respect anyone but the Church. She's probably the most dangerous person I've ever met, and has an ingrained hatred for Magi and all things associated with them. This leads me to believe she's an Executor of some kind. She seems quite confident in her abilities too, since she seems to love throwing death threads around at Magic. Either that, or she's a headstrong idiot, which would also explain her attitude. If this Sister Marque is an Executor like I believe, then she's not to be trifled with or underestimated.

"I assume that's cash. How much are we talkin'?" Archer asks in earnest, I notice a glimmer in her eyes. Being who she is, it doesn't surprise me. She's got to have a certain weakness for money.

"Oho, sounds like I got your attention. What about you?" Sister Marque turns towards me. Out of the corner of my eye I see Archer turn to me and look at me with widened eyes.

I wave my hand. "Whatever, I'll think about it. Just get off my screen already." I give her a vague answer and wave her off. Yayoi will be arriving soon and I don't want to be in the middle of talking to Sister Marque when she gets here. More than that though, I just don't like talking to her for extended periods of time.

On the screen, Sister Marque shrugs. "Good enough I guess. Whether or not _you_ decide to do it, someone else probably will." She leans back in her chair and the screen goes black rather abruptly.

"That girl scares me." After all this time, Hilda finally speaks up.

"Scares _you_? She doesn't want to horribly murder _you_." I shoot back at her.

"Well, if she does kill you I'll just get Yayoi to put you in here with me." Hilda chuckles.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence. You're so supportive." I reply with as much sarcasm as I can muster.

"So we're going to do it, right? Master?" Archer creeps closer to me on the couch. She's crawling playfully towards me, purposefully accentuating her breasts to get my attention. Calling me Master is part of it too. She certainly knows how to manipulate people, well, men.

"I don't know if you noticed, but she neglected to mention how much money she was offering. It's probably not worth it." I inform Archer. It was suspicious that all she tried to do was placate Archer's greed and once she hooked Archer didn't seem to concern herself with trying to convince me. It was almost as though she didn't want to offer up the money at all. Probably wants to keep it for herself, if I had to guess. However if that's the case, than it might be quite a bit of money.

"It's the lack of information she gave that has me interested. She's hiding something." Archer replies excitedly.

There's also the other reason that we should do this, now that I really think about it. The fact that innocent people are getting caught up in the War, and whatever Servant is causing the havoc is risking our discovery. It IS kind of our obligation to stop it, regardless of the reward.

"So? Who do you think it is?" Hilda asks curiously.

I rub my chin in thought. "We can rule out Saber, Archer, Rider, and Lancer without a doubt." In my pocket, my phone beeps. I pause my explanation and take it out. There's a text message from a private number. After I open it, it explains everything.

_Dear shithead, I forgot to mention you're going after Assassin. They're both real pieces of work, so be careful. To be clear, that wasn't concern. Just in case you're retarded. I'd just hate to see you killed before I get a chance to do it myself. Lucky for you, I have my orders._

"Well that takes the fun out of it." I frown and put my phone back in my pocket. How the hell did she even get my number? At this point I should assume she's into everything. Next thing I know she'll be calling me on public phones I happen to walk by.

"So what's the verdict?" Archer asks.

"Assassin." I frown. Couldn't have picked a worse opponent. Assassin-class Servants can hide their presence almost flawlessly and specialize at killing enemy Masters from the shadows.

"Got our work cut out for us then don't we?" Archer almost looks excited.

"What about Yayoi, don't forget about her." Hilda reminds me.

"I'd rather her not get involved. She still needs to recover both herself and Saber." I reply. She's in no condition to do any kind of fighting right now, and I don't want Assassin anywhere near Yayoi. If Assassin hides his mana output, she'd never even see him coming, and that scares me. More than anything else.

"You know she won't let you do it alone. You know her as well as I do." Hilda replies frankly.

"I know, I'll have to think of some way to convince her. Either that, or tie her up somewhere." I mention jokingly.

Archer laughs. "I like the way ya think, though I don't think Saber would be too happy about that."

A few minutes later, Yayoi arrives with her father, who is carrying several bags of her stuff for her. Hilda opens the door for them and Mr. Sakuraba sets the bags inside my doorway but he doesn't come inside himself.

"I'm trusting you with my daughter, Aoyagi." He eyes me sternly. Understandable, he's worried about her. I'm surprised he was talked into it considering our situation. It is quite dangerous for Yayoi to be staying here, so from his standpoint, I get where he's coming from.

"I'll be sure to keep an eye on him. He won't try anything as long as I'm around." Hilda says confidently.

"I'll take care of her, sir." I assure him.

Mr. Sakuraba nods. "See that you do." He says flatly.

"I'll be fine, daddy, jeez." Yayoi steps inside and removes her shoes.

Her dad clears his throat. "If you need anything, just ask. You two behave yourselves. That goes double for you." He gestures over at Archer who is sprawled out on the couch.

Archer sits up. "Who? Little ol' me?" She bats her eyelashes.

Yayoi's dad leaves and Yayoi turns to me and bows deeply. "Um, thank you for having me." She says nervously. I don't know what she's being so reserved about, but it's making me nervous too.

"Y-yeah. I'll take this upstairs for you." I reply uneasily and grab her bags. I glance over at her out of the corner of my eye. She's wearing long sleeves and a long dress to cover up her her burns. I imagine she'll dress like this for the rest of her life.

Seeing her in that hospital bed really made me think about how dangerous this whole thing is. If I had gotten to her sooner on that day on the roof. I could have helped her and Tohsaka wouldn't have lived to torment us again. Yayoi wouldn't have gotten burned.

"Are you okay, Jin?" Yayoi asks when we reach the spare bedroom where I'll have her stay. She looks concerned. She's so caring. After everything she's been through, she still worries about me. I should be the least of her worries.

"I'm sorry." I say without thinking as I catch a glance of her ankles as I set down her bags on the bed. I should have protected her better. I should have payed more attention. I could have done something more than I did to prevent this from happening.

"What for?" Yayoi tilts her head in confusion.

"Not being there when it happened..." I can practically feel my own brow furrowing.

"Jin..." Yayoi wraps her arms around my neck and hugs me tightly, her fingers daintily stroke the back of my neck. "You did everything you could. You saved my life. I don't think you have anything to be sorry about."

She kisses my cheek. She's never done that before. Her lips are soft, and warm. I can feel my face start to flush. I want to hug her back. I want to show her what she means to me. Since this whole war started, I feel like I've grown more attached to her. I hug her back. Her body stiffens for a split second and then relaxes, she doesn't protest at all.

After a minute or so of just enjoying each other's company I let her go and she does the same. Both of us are blushing and the mood feels a little awkward.

"I-I'm going to go start dinner with Hilda. You go ahead and unpack." I say and start to retreat out of the room. Once I exit the room I find Saber leaning against the wall waiting for me. He must have came in spirit-form.

"She's kinder than you realize. She's been using all of the mana she's regaining to heal me." He says, looking annoyed.

"That explains why her own injuries haven't been healing as fast as they normally would if she were healing herself." I reply. Yayoi is quite adept at healing magic, the burn scars are still beyond her but the wounds themselves shouldn't be a problem. Still she seems weak, it explains why. She's been using the majority of her magical energy to heal Saber. But why?

"She does it for you, and I wish she wouldn't." Saber frowns.

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask. Saber rarely speaks to me, or anyone as far as I know. This is probably the most I've ever heard him talk at once. He's got to be trying to tell me something.

"I'm telling you because you need to get stronger, not just for her, but for you too. It will alleviate some of her worrying. I hope, at least." He replies plainly.

"I know, I'm working on it." I say flatly. I haven't had a whole lot of time to think so far. I'm starting to get some ideas, I need to spend some time thinking to actually develop some kind of strategy.

"As long as you know." He ends the conversation with that and allows me to proceed downstairs.

"You two are growing pretty close, aren't you. Well, closer than you were before." Hilda says as I make my way towards the kitchen to start dinner.

"You think so?" I reply, not really listening to her. My mind is still heavily occupied by the feeling of Yayoi's lips on my cheek.

"It's written all over your face. I saw what happened in the spare room just now too." Hilda chuckles.

I frown. "No privacy with you around here, is there?" Hilda is in control of all the systems in my house, be it the water temperature, alarm system, security cameras, door controls, everything. My parents were pretty thorough about masquerading her as a real A.I.

"I think it's good that you're starting to finally realize how you really feel about her." Hilda says as we start to make dinner out of whatever happens to be laying around. There's not much, I need to go to the store soon.

"I'm not sure what to do about it..." I heave a sigh. I don't know if I want my relationship with Yayoi to change, but I think it already has. I still have to tell her about the bounty that Sister Marque placed on Assassin, no idea how she's going to react to that.

"You know she's been waiting for you all this time."

"I know."

A few minutes later, dinner was ready. My dinner table has never looked so strange. Yayoi and I were normal of course but on either side of us sat individuals pulled out of their own time. A viking looking barbarian next to Yayoi and a Wild West outlaw next to me.

I tell Yayoi about my conversation with Sister Marque after dinner as she's helping me wash the dishes.

"Assassin?! That's way too dangerous, you can't be thinking about going after that Servant by yourself!" She exclaims. "What is that Sister thinking." She mumbles.

"I'll have Archer with me, I won't exactly be alone. Besides, they'll just keep killing people if I don't." I reply casually.

"I'm sure the other Masters will jump at the chance, even if not for the right reasons." Yayoi seems really disappointed in the idea that I want to go after Assassin. Can't say I blame her, she must be in the same position as me, she doesn't want me to go get hurt as much as I don't want her to.

"Besides, it'll give Tohsaka plenty of opportunities to attack you while you're out looking for Assassin and unprepared for him and Lancer." Yayoi has a point there. I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing if I was in Tohsaka's position.

"I don't think hiding from the problem will solve anything either." I reply. "I've been losing every fight. I need to get back in the game." I don't like losing. I need to find some way to even the odds, but I don't want to leave Yayoi out in the water either. "I want to make sure you stay safe above anything though."

Yayoi blushes. "You just don't like to lose." It's like she can see right through me. She sighs audibly. "It isn't like I can stop you, if you're that determined."

I glance over my shoulder at Archer, who has once again taken up residence on my couch in front of my video screen. She's become awfully attached to that couch, and more often than not just sprawls out all the way across it when it's not being used by anyone but her. Saber meanwhile, has taken the large reclining chair next to the couch, and has his sword leaned up against the side. He seems to be quite content.

Archer is right. I need an edge. I need to take my weaknesses and make it a strength. It's been quite some time since I've created a new device. I've been pretty happy with my belt buckle, and while it's saved my hide countless times it alone isn't cutting it anymore.

I tap Yayoi on the shoulder after we finish up the dishes. I know what I have to do, I may even know how I'm going to do it. No more. I'm not going to lose any more. Archer said I needed to find my determination, even Saber said I should get stronger. I tell Yayoi that I'm going somewhere, as long as she's known me. She knows what that means. She merely nods.

I leave the kitchen and head to an old dusty door in the back of the house. This is the place the house was built around. I open the door and the lights automatically come on. This is the only place in the house with an actual AI still in it.

_User Identified as Aoyagi Jin. Deactivating barrier. Magical defenses deactivated. Welcome home._ A female voice chimes in as I begin my decent down the steps. Lights begin to pop on further down the staircase. The words I said to Yayoi back upstairs wasn't anything special, but I said everything I needed to so she would know what I'm doing.

"I'm going to the lab. I know what I have to do."

I tend to lose myself sometimes when I'm down here. Losing track of time is one of the disadvantages if I get on a roll. When I was working on my belt buckle, I was down here for two weeks solid. Yayoi found me nearly starved to death. My parents left me this place along with everything else. They put every kind of equipment they could think of in here. Books, reagents for different kind of rituals, computers and science equipment. Anything I could ever need, actually the only thing I don't have that I've thought about is a particle accelerator. I could make some cool stuff with one of those.

I grab a spool of copper wire off of one of the shelves. "Right. Let's start small."


End file.
